Finely-tuned BSC Filters is the 1998 Evening Press Business Venture of the Year. And the dynamic firm is also the year's Best Exporter.

The double accolade for the Osbaldwick-based company, which makes revolutionary microwave filters for the telecommunications industry, was announced at an exciting awards reception last night

Alan Corlett, of BSC Filters, with Phil Gees, left, Barclays head of small business, Brian Lawrence, second right, of North Yorkshire TEC, and Liz Page, editor of the Evening Press

Its managing director, Alan Corlett, received both awards amid thunderous applause from a gathering of top business people in the city at the Evening Press offices in Walmgate, York.

Judges were amazed at the efficiency of BSC which has created the perfect balance between production techniques, productivity, new ideas and high tech investment and which at the last count exported 48.4 per cent of turnover.

They awarded Mr Corlett and his team the coveted Evening Press Business Venture of the Year brass plaque, a cheque for £2,000 and £1,000 worth of advertising in the Evening Press.

Then came another £500 cheque for winning the Exporter of the Year accolade.

Ten finalists gathered in this seventh year of the competition sponsored by the Evening Press, Barclays Bank, York, and the North Yorkshire Training and Enterprise Council. All received certificates.

Runner-up was Michael Lupton Associates, which from a converted pub in Seaton Ross supplies British police forces as well as the Prison Service with public order equipment such as gloves and helmets.

With three major government contracts this year totalling £300,000, and a growth rate of about 50 per cent a year, MLA proved itself worthy of the prize of £1,000 and £500 worth of free advertising.

Third place and a cheque for £500 plus £250 worth of free advertising went to Frozen in Time Ltd, a Pickering firm that makes and sells high-tech freeze-drying machines. Founder managing director Roger Connell and his staff of six expect turnover to increase 200 per cent over the next two years once they move into new 5,000 sq ft workshops being built for them on the Kirkby Moor industrial estate at Kirkbymoorside.

Trainer of the Year award with certificate and a £500 cheque went to Ideas Management Ltd, a York firm which harnesses brainwaves to profit started by Andrew Wood, a former British Rail manager at York who used to run suggestion schemes.

Now he offers training and consultancy services or tailor-made employee suggestion schemes for privatised railway companies as well as the Bank of Scotland, HM Prisons and Motorola.

The Personality of the Year award - a cheque for £500 - went to Chris Wise, managing director of NMTV, whose studio occupies a huge Victorian house in Huntington Road, York.

Chris, 35, a newspaper journalist-turned-broadcaster has managed to turn his own enthusiasm for vintage cars, current affairs and a deliciously quirky view of life into television films and healthy profit - with a constant demand for more from the small screen moguls.

see NEWS 'Double joy for filter kings'

see COMMENT 'Merchants on big adventure'

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