Awards SEE big things ahead
SOMETIMES the biggest business stories are right under your nose.
Or in the case of civil construction operation SEE Group, right under your tyres.
The former Tweed-based group took out the Construction and Trades Award in the August presentations for the Gold Coast Business Excellence Awards.
It seemed a fitting prize for a family operation that was founded at Chinderah in 1988 with a couple of trucks and a few excavators.
Almost 30 years later the group has grown to 240 direct employees, more than 300 pieces of plant and a $240 million turnover.
Director Mark Turner said the group counted the M1 expansion and the Gold Coast Airport as being among its major projects.
He said some of the group’s biggest clients included all levels of government.
But the group also has some of the Gold Coast’s largest residential and commercial building projects on its belt, including Pacific Pines, the Coomera Town Centre and the Empire business park at Yatala.
Mr Turner said the group’s expanding portfolio meant a move to the Gold Coast eventually made commercial sense.
“Our work stretches from Ipswich in the north down to Woodburn in NSW so it made sense to move to the Gold Coast because it’s basically the halfway point between all of those,” he said.
“We still have an office in the Tweed.”
Other winners on the day included: Powertec Technologies which took out the Mayor’s Innovation Award; Glass Media Group which won the Student Employability Award; the Professions and Business Services Award went to Keolis Downer Gold Coast (operators of the G: Link); John Henderson Real Estate won the Family Business Award; Back In Motion won the Health and Wellbeing Award; the Manufacturing Award went to Brauer Industries; Maxsift took out the IT and Digital Business Award; Tourism Hospitality went to Fish the Deep Charters; the Retail, Wholesale and Distribution Award went to Totally Workwear; and the Emerging Business Award went to Carton Cloud.
At the end of the year, all the monthly winners vie for annual awards in each category and compete for the Business of the Year Award honour at a black-tie Gala Awards Dinner, to be held on
10 November 2018 at The Star Gold Coast.
The ceremony will also see another Gold Coast business identity inducted into the awards Hall of Fame, joining previous inductees including Des Brookes, Jock McIlwain, Jim Raptis and Norm Rix.