By CASEY NEILL
“WE ARE all indebted to you for your hard work and give you great thanks.”
These words from Jayco founder Gerry Ryan and a few from SEBN manager Sandra George rendered Premier Regional Business Awards chairman Jamie Sturgess speechless.
He and HM GEM Engines’ Bruce Parker were inducted to the Greater Dandenong Hall of Fame at a gala dinner to celebrate the Premier Regional Business Awards’ 25th and final year at Sandown Greyhounds in Springvale on Wednesday 13 April.
“I’ll blame Sandra because she was game enough to come up on stage,” Mr Sturgess said, struggling to regain his composure.
Ms George read a message on Mr Ryan’s behalf, telling Jamie that the honour was well-deserved.
“It’s not very often one gets to take the microphone off Jamie Sturgess,” she joked.
“Your intelligence, drive and passionate promotion of Dandenong has made this great city a desirable place for businesses to operate and thrive.”
Mr Sturgess and Mr Parker and joined previous inductees Ms George, Mr Ryan, Ken Grenda, Jill Walsh and Ron Rado.
The lawyer is passionate about seeing Greater Dandenong and its surrounds grow and prosper.
He’s a past president and life member of the Greater Dandenong Chamber of Commerce, Committee for Dandenong chairman, has played a key role in the Premier Regional Business Awards since their inception, and is a South East Melbourne Manufacturers Alliance (SEMMA) board member.
Mr Parker was also stunned to receive the honour.
He said his business HM GEM Engines was in the premier region of the best country in the world and thanked SEMMA, SEBN and the City of Greater Dandenong for support.
“We’re unique and of that there’s absolutely no doubt,” he said.
“I feel particularly fortunate in that the people sitting on table 26, I believe, are the best team in the business and the best team in our industry.”
Mr Parker proudly told the packed room that he’d recently, for the first time, appointed a general manager that had started with the company as an apprentice.
He, too, started his automotive industry career as an apprentice with Preston Motors in 1960.
In 1969 he started Headmod in a garage behind his parents’ East Doncaster home.
Rapid business growth forced a move to Doncaster shortly after, and then to a 65,000 square-foot facility on a four acre site in Dandenong South in 1989.
Mr Parker guided the company through expansion and acquisitions, including the 1998 merger with New South Wales company Gem Engines and acquiring 12 Repco regional engineering machine shops across Australia.
The company was awarded the Prime Minister’s Employer of the Year Award four times, Engine Re-builder of the Year three times, the Victorian State Premier’s Regional Award for Manufacturing, and more.
Mr Parker has prioritised vacancies not requiring trade qualifications for people with disabilities, and for more than 15 years has supported Victoria Police initiative Hand Brake Turn, helping troubled youths.
The Singaporean government and USA equipment giant Caterpillar both sought his expertise for major projects.
With a fellow ex-commando, Mr Parker founded the Commando Welfare Trust to provide Christmas gifts and high levels of education, school requirements, uniforms and more for dependent children of commandos who were killed in action or training, or were badly injured while serving their country.
He’s been an active Rotarian for many years and was directly involved in the Rotary International 1999 East Timor-Australian Government initiative to retrain Falintil guerrillas.
The Parker family has also founded the Michael Parker Foundation to provide education for underprivileged children in Australia, East Timor and Nepal.
This foundation, in memory of Mr Parker’s son, recently completed the first stage of a dormitory in Nepal for girls attending school from remote areas.
Watch our video from the Hall of Fame announcement:
