West Coast Leading Light Business Excellence Awards

Media release – 19 May 2012

Winners of 2012 West Coast Leading Light Business Excellence Awards announced

Independent dairy co-operative Westland Milk Products has been named the supreme winner of the 2012 West Coast Leading Light Business Excellence Awards. Westland Milk Products won both the Duncan Cotterill Leading Light Primary Producer Award and the Greymouth Star Super Nova award.

The winners were announced at a black tie function at Shantytown on Friday 18 May and are :

PwC - Leading Light Retail award Greymouth New World NZIM Southern – Leading Light Service award Jeff Evans Plumbers Ltd Hokitika Solid Energy – Leading Light Community / Charity Organisation award West Coast Blue Penguin Trust Duncan Cotterill – Leading Light Primary Westland Milk Products Producer award Hokitika ACC – Leading Light Workplace Safety award Westco Lagan Ltd, Hokitika Westland Milk Products – Leading Light E-Quip Engineering Ltd Construction / Engineering / Manufacturing award Greymouth Tourism West Coast – Leading Light Tourism award Te Waonui Forest Retreat Franz Josef Greymouth Star – Super Nova award Westland Milk Products Hokitika

This year there was a new special commendation award given to a leading light in the West Coast business community. The special commendation was awarded to Westport’s Richard Dellaca whose family founded Postie Plus.

“Richard Dellaca epitomises the West Coast’s pioneering spirit. He was there when the company began a hugely successful mail order business from Westport and was one of the first businessmen to travel to China to source garments directly. Richard and Postie Plus showed us you could run a successful company from the West Coast, he is a worthy recipient of the inaugural special commendation award,” says DWC Chairman John Sturgeon.

DWC CEO John Chang says all the winners should be proud of their achievements. “These awards attract the West Coast’s best businesses and it is a great accolade to be named a winner. It is the second year the awards have run and it is heartening to see there were more entries over a wider range of categories this year, and for that we would like to sincerely thank all who have entered in this year’s event” he says. “Westland Milk Products is a worthy winner representing a very important wealth generating industry on the West Coast. On behalf of the entire West Coast community we would like to congratulate Westland Milk Products on winning the supreme award, the 2012 Super Nova award.

Dr Chang says the awards would not have been possible without the support of all the sponsors, many of which have supported the awards since they began in 2011. He also thanked MC Peter Williams and guest speaker, Sir Brain Lochore for taking part in the event.

Dr Chang also wants to acknowledge the hard work of DWC Events Coordinator Julie Kissell and her colleagues in planning and co-ordinating the event.

ENDS

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