A LEADING figure promoting start-up businesses in Huddersfield has received a Queen’s Award.
Prof John Thompson, professor of entrepreneurship at Huddersfield University’s business school, said: “It is just brilliant. When I got the letter through the door saying I had been approved for the award I was gobsmacked.”
Prof Thompson, 61, who lives at Edgerton, has worked extensively in the field of ‘incubating’ new businesses.
He pioneered the university-backed Huddersfield Business Generator, which was set up at the Media Centre to provide a springboard for scores of start-up companies.
The HBG, which was launched by Sir Alan Sugar, went on to provide a blueprint for other ‘incubation’ facilities across the UK and overseas.
Prof Thompson also created the university’s Business Mine, which supports students and graduates researching their ideas for setting up in business.
Prof Thompson, whose career at the university spans 35 years, became its first professor of entrepreneurship in 1998.
He also achieved a coup by persuading Dragon’s Den panellist Theo Paphitis to support the launch of the first-ever BA honours degree in Enterprise Development at the university.
INTERNATIONAL trade award winner Melett Ltd supplies replacement turbocharger repair kits and parts.
They are used for reconditioning and repairing turbos originally manufactured by companies including Turnbridge-based Holset – now Cummins Turbo Technologies.
The company, which won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2006, supplies parts to customers in more than 90 countries with exports accounting for 90% of its business.
The firm, which dates from 1975, provides a range of more than 1,600 parts for repairing turbos used in cars, trucks and off-road vehicles.
Managing director Ian Warhurst, who acquired the business in 2002, said the award recognised its continued success in building international sales. This year, the firm’s sales team will attend exhibitions in Instanbul, Amsterdam, Paris and the USA.
The company, which moved from Dewsbury to Clayton West in 2006, is creating a new job in its sales department and has employees who are fluent in French, Spanish and Russian.
Melett is also expanding its premises at Park Mill Way to provide space to assemble turbos – taking it into manufacturing for the first time.
