ENGINEERING
Winners – celebrating the Tees Business of the Year award.
The talent, industrial heritage and pride in workmanship here are second to none.”
Proud – CEO David Brennan.
commitment to supporting women, championing inclusion and backing good causes – a passion he already follows back in Ireland, with his support for the Vicky’ s Legacy cervical cancer charity and campaign in memory of his friend Vicky Phelan.
Eastgate in Bloom was such a success, it will now become an annual fixture – exactly the sort of community involvement the Eastgate hierarchy wants to encourage as its impressive growth journey continues.
Personnel-wise, it’ s been a great few months for Eastgate too, with commercial director Anthony Fiske’ s appointment to the Tees Valley Combined Authority Board and a notable shortlisting for David as a finalist in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Ireland awards programme.
Started by accountant EY – formerly Ernst & Young – back in 1986, the awards are a globally recognised initiative operating in nearly 60 countries, celebrating founders and CEOs who embody innovation, resilience and purpose-driven leadership
And David – who must travel to Toronto to attend a prestigious CEO retreat – admits it was quite a shock to learn he was a finalist.
He smiled:“ I didn’ t realise how much of a big deal it was until the finalists first met up in Dublin. Immediately, when you wake up on announcement day, you get added to the WhatsApp group of nearly 700 alumni, who, between them, are doing £ 28bn worth of work and employ 270,000 people – and 70pc of those people do business with each other.
“ It’ s amazing, but that’ s all down to the people who work at Eastgate. I’ m just a representative of what we do.”
The company proudly maintains its Irish roots and has just moved into a new office at Marine Point in the Port of Waterford – a strategic move to be well placed for the incoming offshore wind industry.
It also has a new office in Warrington and, in the same week as the Waterford move, switched its Teesside HQ from Billingham to Mercury House on the Teesdale Business Park – a move described as“ an exciting milestone in our company’ s growth journey” and where around 20 Eastgate staff are based.
David said:“ Most of our business is out on site – it’ s where all our tradespeople and engineers work – but our office in Stockton supports what we do on all our projects, so it’ s a great move. We’ re delighted to be there – it’ s a fantastic office and it’ s got room for us to grow.”
And given the whirlwind of recent developments, growth is clearly something Eastgate is pretty good at.
David told Tees Business:“ Much of the work we’ re looking at and are involved in is in the renewables, energy, security and offshore wind sectors.
“ We see the UK as a whole, not just the North-East of England, producing such industries of massive scale that are leaving everyone else in Europe behind. And North-East England is leading the way across the UK.
“ We’ re so proud to work here and proud to be part of the business community.”
And reflecting again on the company’ s Tees Business of the Year title, he added:“ This award is incredibly meaningful for us. Eastgate was founded in Waterford, and that remains an important part of our business, but moving our head office to Teesside in 2015 was a defining moment.
“ Teesside has become our home from a leadership and growth perspective. The talent, industrial heritage and pride in workmanship here are second to none.
“ This recognition belongs to our people – across Teesside, Waterford and every site we operate on. Our success comes from teams who care deeply about what they deliver and how they deliver it.
“ Teesside has supported us since we moved here, and we are proud to contribute back as an employer and business within the region.”
The voice of business in the Tees region | 83