By CASEY NEILL
MAGIC Mobility general manager Jill Barnett’s passion for the company is obvious as she explains her journey to the helm.
Her face understandably lights up as she speaks about the Noble Park manufacturer’s life-changing work for people with disabilities.
“It’s an absolute joy to know we have such a profound impact,” she told the Greater Dandenong Chamber of Commerce Premier Regional Business Awards breakfast at Sandown Greyhounds in Springvale on Wednesday (14 October).
The Premier Regional Business Awards were designed to profile and highlight successful businesses in the region.
They’re now in their 25th and final year, so this year’s breakfast events are highlighting successful businesses from the awards’ past and newcomers with a bright future.
A gala dinner next March will cap off the celebratory year.
Magic Mobility was this breakfast’s newcomer, though it’s been around for 21 years.
Ms Barnett came on board with a degree in mathematics and physics and 12 years at Rolls Royce in the UK under her belt.
She was “over big business” and wanted to run her own, so spoke to a young man in Frankston who happened to be her brother-in-law.
“I wanted to run a business and I wanted to move to Australia,” she said.
So Ms Barnett went through a two-year visa process before landing in a small factory that was then based in Rowville.
“To start with I was a bit of a snob and thought it was beneath me,” she said.
Then she realised the company was changing people’s lives.
It produces custom-made wheelchairs, including a four-wheel drive chair.
“We know that individual’s name and we know their story,” she said.
She spoke about the custom wheelchair created for a man who wanted to weld.
It’s was four-wheel drive so he could access his shed, had a swivel seat so he could move around the workshop, and boasted movable arm rests and a toolbox.
Ms Barnett has used her Rolls Royce connections to help the company to export globally.
“America is our biggest market for export,” she said.
“We’re highly sought after by colleagues in France, Germany, UK, New Zealand … ”
Magic Mobility is experiencing 20 per cent growth year on year.
“Because we’re small, we can be innovative,” Ms Barnett said.
Actco-Pickering has a long and successful history with the awards.
Partner and Committee for Dandenong member Jill Walsh said the company claimed the employment award in 2008 for pro-actively seeking apprentices and trainees across all age groups.
Apprentice Alex Woller won the 2014 Youth Enterprise Award.
“We call him Hollywood Woller now, he’s so used to being on stage,” Ms Walsh said.
She was inducted into the chamber’s Hall of Fame for her efforts lobbying governments about local content, particularly in the rail sector.
The manufacturer supplies sheetmetal to defence and rail and has been “subject to the cyclical nature of those industries”.
Ms Walsh said it had invested profits designing its own products “so we were less exposed to contract manufacturing”.
There are aluminium ute and truck service bodies and an off-road camper trailer.
“We had to lift our skills set in aluminium welding,” she said.
Ms Walsh said Actco-Pickering now had one of the highest skill sets in the country.
Youth Enterprise Award nominee Juwita Jouhari is studying a Diploma of Community Services.
The Keysborough 19-year-old said she’d always struggled with education.
“I was always that student in the corner,” she said.
“But I realised that the more I push myself, the more I grow as a person.
“I’ve always wanted to work with people who are most vulnerable.”
She wants to be able to stand beside them, encourage them and support them.
In five years she hopes to have finished her current diploma plus a case management or community development diploma.
Juwita hopes to have a stable but challenging line of work in family violence or child protection.
Guest speaker Riki Polygenis, National Australia Bank’s head of Australian economics, spoke about the global and Australian economies.
Long-distance swimmer Tammy van Wisse will be the guest speaker at the final ever Premier Regional Business Awards breakfast on 26 November.
