Member Article

Middlesbrough MP hails export award-winner

An award-winning Teesside business that began life in its owner’s back bedroom has been hailed by Middlesbrough MP Andy McDonald during a visit to their premises.

The staff of surface coatings specialist Ecco Finishing Supplies received the North East Export Team of the Year award earlier this year on the back of a series of ground-breaking overseas deals.

Mr McDonald toured Ecco’s Middlesbrough premises on the Letitia Industrial Estate alongside the iconic Newport Bridge.

Managing director Keith Miller explained how the business has become a hugely-successful global exporter in less than 20 years, achieving export successes in the Middle East, Africa, Russia, Canada and Kazakhstan. The company is also in talks to export to the USA for the first time.

Mr McDonald has repeatedly expressed his great support for the town’s continuing “industrial renaissance” and has promised to endeavour to do as much as he can to promote and build upon the successes of local firms.

Mr McDonald said: “Entrepreneurs like Keith Miller are proof that Middlesbrough is open for business.

“To have grown a business from his back bedroom is an exceptional achievement and I will be keen where possible to help inventive and expanding businesses like Ecco build on their success at home and abroad.”

Middlesbrough-born Mr Miller started the business at his Billingham home in 1995 with the investment of £40 in a typewriter.

This year Ecco has already matched last year’s record-breaking £4m turnover, 50% of which is based on overseas business.

The firm clinched a £500,000 distribution deal earlier this year with Oman-based Tech International that means its industrial fire protection products are now being distributed throughout the Middle East including Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.

The specialist machines are used to spray protective coatings – known as passive fire protection - onto a range of steel structures including oil rigs, chemical plants and gas refineries.

Along with five other local businesses, Ecco are also supporters of Middlesbrough Council’s “Made in Middlesbrough” scheme, a campaign that celebrates the town’s engineering excellence. As a result, all of Ecco’s exports carry the “Made in Middlesbrough” wording.

Mr Miller said: “We are proud of our UK and overseas successes and are determined to carry on growing.

“I believe we have touched the tip of the iceberg, especially in terms of potential demand of our industry-leader PFP machine.”

Ecco are now global suppliers of surface preparation and surface finishing products, providing their products, including their own range of purpose-built hydra-cats for the application of polyurethanes and epoxies, across the world.

In the UK, Blue-chip clients include Nissan in Sunderland, Bentley, Toyota, Range Rover and Caterpillar.

And the company supplied equipment employed in the repainting of Tower Bridge ahead of the 2012 London Olympics and the Forth Rail Bridge.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Martin Walker .