1. TERAPROOF:User:keevanbrowneDate:26/08/2010Time:15:59:00Edition:27/08/2010ExaminerLiveXX-2708Page:25 Zone:XX1
25MONEY & JOBSIrish Examiner
Friday 27.08.2010
XX1 - V1
any other business...
GRAPEVINEwith JOE DERMODY
joe.dermody@examiner.ie
on the
prime numbers ...
Shop assistants will soon send messages to the mobiles
of passersby via a hypertag.
At Hickey Fabrication
Services, Kilmacthomas,
Co Waterford, from left: MD
Ger Hickey, business
development manager, Pat
Coldrick, and Savana
Engineering’s Wayne E
Yeager and Wyatt E Yeager.
Picture: Patrick Browne
■ MICHAEL LILLIS has
joined aircraft leasing
group Avolon as chairman
of its Latin American advi-
sory board.
He is a former Irish
diplomat and former head
of GECAS’s Latin America
and Caribbean business
(since acquired by GE), fi-
nancing over 180 aircraft,
valued at in excess of
US$6bn ( 4.7bn). He also
headed up Irish aircraft
lessor GPA. He has fi-
nanced aircraft for Latin
American airlines Avianca,
Aeroméxico, Gol, LAN and
TAM.
■ JOHN GAFFNEY has
joined Donegans Solicitors
as a partner. He brings 19
years experience, having
worked with Freshfields in
Paris, with Skadden Arps
in London, and with the
United Nations Compensa-
tion Commission in Gene-
va.
He has practiced com-
mercial law as a partner
with firms in Dublin and
Cork. He graduated from
NUI with BCL and LL.B de-
grees, and from the Uni-
versity of Amsterdam with
an LL.M in EU and Interna-
tional law.
■ SARAH CUNNINGHAM
has been promoted to ac-
count executive at Pem-
broke Communications.
Ms Cunningham joined the
consumer division in 2009,
working with client such as
Bord Gáis Energy, Crown
Paints, Connacht Gold,
Children’s Miracle Net-
work, Vintners Federation
of Ireland, Novartis and
Teagasc.
Ms Cunningham holds a
BComm with a major in
Marketing and holds an
MA in Public Relations
from the Dublin Institute of
Technology.
■ JOHN HURLEY has
joined the fuel supplier
GreatGas as business de-
velopment manager.
Mr Hurley joins from
Halcrow Barry Engineering
(National Roads Authority)
where he was a retail con-
sultant.
Mr Hurley has also
worked with Topaz Energy
as a network development
manager and he has also
held positions with Shell
UK and Irish Shell.
GreatGas has headquar-
ters in Churchtown, Co
Cork, and is part of the
DCC Plc group.
■ DR PETER STAFFORD
has joined the Society of
Chartered Surveyors as its
new head of policy and
public affairs. He joins
from the Construction In-
dustry Federation, where
he was head of research
and policy. Dr Stafford has
also lectured in the Urban
Institute Ireland in UCD
and the Geary Institute. He
holds a doctorate in Poli-
tics and an MEcon in So-
cial Research Methods
from the University of
Manchester, and a Masters
in Political and Public
Communications, DCU.
■ MIRIAM O’NEILL has
joined the Automobile As-
sociation of Ireland (AA
Ireland) as product PR ex-
ecutive.
Ms O’Neill joins from the
An Post-Fortis joint ven-
ture, Postbank Ireland,
where she was a commu-
nications executive.
She was also previously
a marketing executive with
Banqueting Food Systems.
Ms O’Neill holds a BA in
European Business, and a
HDip in PR and Events
Management from the
Public Relations Institute of
Ireland.
COLD FRONT: The ESB are cutting off power to 900 households a month — or 30 a
day — because people cannot pay their bills. Bord Gais has disconnected an average
of 230 people a month in the last three months. Meanwhile, the Oireachtas Joint
Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs is inviting the Commission for Energy
Regulation to an emergency meeting next week to discuss concerns over a planned
5% increase in electricity prices, due in October. Hundreds of thousands of domestic
customers will be affected by the price hike, which has already been authorised.
Shoppers soon to receive mobile
ads sent by new hypertag device
WALKING by tech-savvy
stores will soon result in
you receiving adverts on
your mobile phone.
Irish mobile-phone mar-
keting company, Adikat, is
partnering with
British-based proximity
marketing specialists, Hy-
pertag. Shop assistants
will wear a hypertag de-
vice that will send
passers-by messages, via
Bloooth, about the store’s
video clips, links and
event notices. Companies
like Unilever and Co-
ca-Cola are already using
this new marketing tool.
Adikat owner, Vince Do-
herty, says: “Permis-
sion-based mobile mar-
keting is increasingly pop-
ular, so this strategic al-
liance will be highly ad-
vantageous to us. We will
have access to first-hand
experience in deploying
major campaigns for top
brands in Ireland.”
Doherty says that global
partnerships like these
will help kickstart the Irish
economy.
International companies
can offer new products
and a chance to expand
the marketplace a compa-
ny works in.
“There’s a huge market-
place to be accessed and
we need to think outside
our shores,” says Doher-
ty. “We live on an island,
but we can build
bridges.”
Doherty says that he
had to overcome legal
barriers in order to secure
the partnership, as British
partnership law differs
from Irish law.
He was also unable to
find any State schemes
that offer financial assis-
tance to companies look-
ing for international part-
nerships.
Number of work days lost to
strike in EU halved since 2008
RECESSION has given
those still in employment
cause for cheer — the av-
erage number of working
days lost, per 1,000 em-
ployees, due to industrial
action fell from 50.5, in
2008, to 24.3, in 2009,
says a report from Euro-
found’s European Indus-
trial Relations Observato-
ry (EIRO).
The EIRO report covers
the year period
2005–2009, in the Euro-
pean Union member
states and Norway. Pay
disputes remain the most
common cause of indus-
trial action across the EU.
Manufacturing was
most prone to conflict,
followed by the broad
public sector, and trans-
port and communications.
The most ‘strike-prone’
countries were Denmark,
France and Belgium,
while Austria, Estonia and
Latvia were essentially
strike-free. The level of in-
dustrial action in the new
EU member states was
only about a quarter of
that in the former EU15
countries.
O’Keeffe wins coaching award
BUSINESS coach Kevin
O’Keeffe has been select-
ed for a coaching excel-
lence award at the presti-
gious 2010 ActionCOACH
Global Conference, held
recently in Barcelona,
Spain.
ActionCOACH founder
and chairman, Brad Sug-
ars, said: “Kevin has al-
ways embraced our 14
points of culture. He is a
great coach and business-
man, with an approach
that connects with
clients.”
O’Keeffe, who coaches
companies throughout
Cork city and county, was
one of 20 global award
winners.
ActionCOACH has more
than 1,000 offices in 32
countries. To learn more,
visit: www.actioncoach.ie.
Waterford company shows its metal
with mining equipment contract
WATER-
FORD-based
industrial steel
product manufacturer Hick-
ey Fabrication (HF) has
struck gold with a contract
to build mining exploration
equipment for an ambitious
new American client.
Savana Engineering MD,
Wyatt Yeager, says the new
gold extraction machines
unveiled yesterday at HF’s
facility in Kilmacthomas,
Co Waterford, are the first
of up to 15 new products
coming on stream this year
alone. These bespoke ma-
chines have been pre-sold to
clients in South America.
It seems that there is no
recession in the global busi-
ness of exploring for pre-
cious minerals.
Wyatt Yeager explains:
“During a recession, gold
becomes more valuable than
ever. Judging by the number
of new mining companies
calling me to order new ma-
chines, this will continue for
at least ten years.
“Despite the downturn in
the construction industry,
there is still a need for min-
erals in TVs, automobiles,
computers and phones, so
mining is something that
will always be a growth in-
dustry. We are just capitalis-
ing on the industrial de-
mand for gold, platinum and
diamonds.”
Mr Yeager says Ireland is
an ideal location for this
new manufacturing venture,
as it is within easy reach of
the US, Africa, Asia and Eu-
rope.
Clients in each of these
zones are looking to develop
new products with Savana
and the engineering experts
at Hickey Fabrication, who
have been given a very wel-
come lift by the unexpected
arrival into their orbit of Sa-
vana. Yeager says: “The
people at Hickey Fabrica-
tion will not know this, but
they were part of my plans
long before they ever knew
who I was. I did extensive
research on fabrication and
engineering firms, and I
chose them because of their
qualified engineers, their
professionalism and the fact
that they were using the lat-
est 3D modelling, and I had
ideas I wanted to develop
into new products.
“What sealed it for me
was the way they treated me
like royalty from day one,
walking me through every
piece of equipment long be-
fore I had given them so
much as a penny. Plus, their
fabricators can think for
themselves and solve prob-
lems without turning to me
every time. That has been
unlike anything I could have
hoped to find back in the
States.”
Hickey Fabrication yester-
day unveiled the first of its
range of highly efficient, be-
spoke, purpose-built ma-
chines for Savana’s mining
industry clients. On display
were a 100-ton wash plant
that includes a rotary dual
screen trommel and two
pan-American gravity con-
centration mineral jigs, plus
a 35-ton portable gold and
diamond sampling plant.
While this is a first foray
into mining products for
Hickey Fabrication, the
company is built to respond
to changing demands. All of
its products are bespoke,
one-off orders, such as the
award-winning glass and
steel staircase and balustrades
at Waterford Institute of
Technology’s nursing educa-
tion building, plus car show-
rooms in Cork City, Mal-
low, Waterford, Kilkenny,
Clonmel and Dublin.
The company has a
proven ability to adapt to
change. Prior to the current
recession, 80% of the com-
pany’s fabrication orders
came from the construction
sector. Now, 80% of its out-
put relates to pharmaceutical
companies and plant main-
tenance. It has been a finalist
in several Small Firms Asso-
ciation annual awards, and
has also been named Water-
ford Business of the Year,
accolades which helped
catch the eye of Savana En-
gineering.
Having launched in 2001,
Hickey Fabrication sought
Waterford County Enter-
prise board’s help to build a
2,400 sq ft workshop in
Lemybrien in 2002. Over
the next few years the com-
pany built up a business ser-
vicing the pharmaceutical,
chemical, food and building
industries.
Hickey Fabrication em-
ploys 35 full-time employ-
ees, and company MD Ger
Hickey’s main goal in the
current economic climate is
to ensure that he brings in
enough orders to retain all
of those highly-skilled staff,
comprised primarily of
qualified electrical and me-
chanical engineers, fabrica-
tors and Autocad 3D mod-
elling designers.
Ger Hickey notes: “This
work for Savana Engineer-
ing is something new, some-
thing no other company in
this country is doing. It
gives great encouragement
to the lads on the floor, and
lets them know that their
jobs are safe. I want to keep
my people employed. They
are all highly-skilled people.
“They all have technical
skills, but everybody in this
company is also effectively
in a sales role. When Wyatt
Yeager visited, the lads took
him through every step of
every piece of technology,
from hand-drawn sketches
of the product to Autocad
and onto the fabrication
processes.
“That is a tedious enough
hand-holding approach, but
we’re used to that. Every-
thing we do is bespoke. We
never produce the same
thing twice. The customer
comes first, and in this cur-
rent climate, survival is all
about your ability to change
and adapt.”
Hickey Fabrication has
certainly proved itself on
that front. The mining ex-
ploration machines unveiled
yesterday will shortly be
used to extract gold, dia-
monds and other precious
minerals from mines in
South Africa.
Savana Engineering has
placed orders for a suite of
further machines. Some will
be river-based alluvial ma-
chines, dredges, barges and
flotation devices used in the
extraction of gold and pre-
cious gemstones in relatively
shallow explorations, others
will be for deeper explo-
rations into hard rock,
crushing quartz and digging
down deeper for zinc, titani-
um and platinum.
For Hickey Fabrication,
things are certainly looking
up. For this Waterford com-
pany at least, all that glitters
probably is gold.
RTÉ enlists recruitment firm
WE understand that RTÉ
has enlisted a recruitment
agency to help it find can-
didates for the post of di-
rector general, with a
view to attracting applica-
tions from overseas.
Outgoing director gen-
eral, Cathal Goan, has
agreed to remain in the
seat until a successor is
appointed. The most like-
ly contenders are internal
senior executives — chief
financial officer, Conor
Hayes, managing director
of news, Ed Mulhall, head
of radio, Clare Duignan
and the head of TV, Glen
Kilane.
The position is expect-
ed to be advertised here,
and overseas, in the next
few weeks. The appoint-
ment will be made by the
government on the basis
of a recommendation
from the RTÉ board.
���
����� ������
�������� ����� ������
������ ��� ����� ��������� ������� ����������� ��������� �� ����������� �����
������� �
������� ��������
���������� �����
������� ��� � ��� ����
�������� ��� ����� ������ ������ ����
����������� ��
��������������������
��� ����� ���� ����� ����� �������� ��� �������������
��������� �������� ��� � ���� ������ ����� ��� �����������
�������������
��� ������������ ����������� ��� ������� ���������
����� ���������������
�� ���� ���� �����������
���� �����
������������
����������
��������