Regional award for county boss

Leading Shropshire businessman Geoffrey Davies OBE has been named the 2007 West Midlands Entrepreneur of the Year.

Mr Davies of Lee Brockhurst, near Shrewsbury, is managing director of Alamo Group Europe and vice-president of Alamo Group Inc (USA), one of the world's largest manufacturers of agricultural and vegetation control machinery.

He is now in the running to win the national award, to be announced at a gala event at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London on November 27.

The award was made for the way that Geoffrey has sustained impressive business growth across all the Alamo Group Europe companies.

These include McConnel, in Ludlow, where his son Christian is the company's general manager; Bomford Turner and Spearhead in Salford Priors, Worcestershire and Twose in north Devon.

McConnel was also the first winner of the Shropshire Business of the Year Award back in 2001.

Alamo Group Europe is the market leader in its industry sectors and has a current annual turnover of £70-million-plus and a payroll of around 850 people.

Geoffrey was presented with the regional award by Nick Graham, chief executive of Shropshire Chamber of Commerce.

Mr Davies said: "I view this award as recognition of a great team effort by all Alamo employees. Some might view agricultural machinery manufacturing as highly unfashionable metal-bashing, but it's not. In this day and age it's about developing innovative hi-tech products that can be sold in home and overseas markets.

"We're proving that you can still run profitable engineering and manufacturing businesses in the UK. It doesn't all have to come from China or Eastern Europe.

"Alamo, along with McConnel, have got very exciting times ahead, in particular because of the demand for extra crop production being generated for biofuels and changing food patterns."

Among the measures Geoffrey has overseen in Alamo Group have been the launches of new sales and product development strategies among his operating companies, introduction of advanced computer-aided design and manufacture and drastic reductions in overheads through changed working procedures.

With a stream of innovative, high-quality products, Alamo companies, and in particular McConnel, have won some prestigious awards, including a Queen's Award for Enterprise (Innovation). Geoffrey himself received an OBE for services to the agricultural machinery industry in 2004 and he is currently president of the Agricultural Engineers' Association and chairman of the Farm Council.