Jason Ellenport, Ward Petherbridge, Nick Aronis and Greater Dandenong Chamber of Commerce president Peter Helmore.
By CASEY NEILL
MOUNT Athos was the hot tip for the Melbourne Cup from yesterday’s Premier Regional Business Awards breakfast guest speaker, race caller Bryan Martin.
Mr Martin told the Greater Dandenong Chamber of Commerce event at Sandown Greyhounds, Springvale, that he heard his first Melbourne Cup call when he was six years old.
“From then on I grew this passion for horse racing,” he said.
He described giving kids at school horse names and calling their run around the oval, and how he won a radio competition at 16. He refined his skills at race tracks and in May 1970 started race calling.
Mr Martin retired in 2007 but after two years returned to SEN. He called Black Caviar’s 22nd straight win at Royal Ascott earlier this year.
“What she’s done for racing has been simply fantastic,” he said.
He’s set up a place to honour such horses – Living Legends Farm in Tullamarine, which is home to Apatche Cat, Fields of Omagh, Doriemus, and other great racing names.
“It’s virtually like an old people’s home,” he said.
Mulgrave 17-year-old Dimitrios Litsios was the breakfast’s Youth Enterprise nominee.
He has excelled in welding and metalwork, progressing rapidly through his apprenticeship.
He’s the third generation of his family to enter manufacturing and works alongside his father at family company Eurotech International in Moorabbin.
Dimitrios has plans to complete a mechanical engineering course and his long term goal is to assist his father at Eurotech International as much as he can.
Waste Converters Recycling, Ventrader, and Five AM Life were the three Premier Regional Business Award nominees announced.
Waste Converters began more than 30 years ago at an old sand quarry that became a landfill site, but in the mid ‘90s saw the opportunity for recycling.
Manager Ward Petherbridge joined the family business around this time after returning from a five-year stint in the Netherlands where he became interested in environmental science.
Waste Converters now takes in 50,000 tonnes of waste each year and only about 5 per cent makes its way to landfill.
Mr Petherbridge told the breakfast it was about matching source with demand – the business receives crates and pallets as waste that it supplies to other businesses that need them.
It’s also started project Create from a Crate which sees people turn timbers that are too good for mulching into artworks and useful items.
Ventrader and Safety Stations in Hallam are owned by managing director Nick Aronis.
Ventrader was established in 2003 to focus on high quality drink machines and food vending solutions and now has a distribution network in every Australian state.
Safety Solutions was developed in 2007. The machines deliver gloves, vests, hats and other personal protective equipment on-site without supervision, and customers report a 30 per cent saving on previous usage levels.
Mr Aronis joined the company in 2006 and bought it in 2010 when the former owner retired.
He sees opportunities for vending machines holding stationery, coffee, shoes, car wash supplies, and even meals.
“Vending equipment has come a long way from your traditional chips and drinks and snacks,” he said.
Five:am general manager Jason Ellenport said the company had seen “supersonic growth” since it started two years ago – from one employee to 40.
“It has been like a rollercoaster,” he said.
Founder David Prior decided he wanted to do something for the environment and found a gap in the organic yogurt market.
The name stems from his belief that people get a unique view of the world at 5am – a sense of clarity rarely seen throughout the rest of the day.
Five:am’s challenge is to bottle it to allow their customers a 5am moment any time.
“It’s about getting control of your day and about how you live your life,” Mr Ellenport said.
“We’ve all been the situation when we’ve been rushing off to work and your day is running you rather than you running it.”
He said the business had its challenges. Surveys say people would prefer to eat organic food but don’t want to pay a premium for it.
“But when you look at an organic cow, the size of the udder is pretty small compared to a standard cow,” he said.
And there’s a peak and off-peak season for milk. But they’ve taken the challenges on board and set out to build a family culture within the organisation to boot.
The Carrum Downs factory crew takes breaks for yoga and meditation and group activities, and now have their own gymnasium.
They want to change the way people eat and live their lives.
The Premier Regional Business Awards are designed to profile and highlight successful small and large businesses in the region.
Winners will be announced and presented at the Gala Dinner in March next year.
