Back to press releases

Cohort Announces 2015 Business Excellence Awards

Published 12th November 2015

Cohort plc held its annual Business Excellence Awards presentation on 12th November at Newbury Racecourse. The event is intended to reward outstanding performance and contribution to the success of the Group by employees of MASS, MCL, SCS and SEA. As honorary members of the Cohort family (their full membership is agreed subject only to Portuguese government approval), EID was also invited to take part. As in past years the standard of entries was extremely high and selecting the winners was a difficult task.

This year’s Gold Award went to the Project DORIS Team from MCL. The team successfully executed a project to design and manufacture a system that was technically new and highly challenging, both in terms of performance and the operating environment. This was achieved within an extremely tight timescale to meet a planned Royal Navy operation; and the system MCL provided was the key item – without it, the operation could not go ahead. The winning team members were Mark Hawkins, Ian Liddell, Graham Page, Paul Roberts and Steve Smith.

Silver awards went to:

  • MCL’S Tactical Hearing Protection System Team (Tony Brown, Dave Burt, Jonathan Clegg, Mark Hawkins, Claire King, Simon Holder, Graham Page, Paul Phillips, Paul Roberts, Luke Silk and Steve Smith) for winning a UK MOD contract for sophisticated hearing protection equipment for dismounted close combat users with an initial order of £11m.
  • MASS’s Air Platform Protection Test and Evaluation Squadron Team (Peter Hackney, Chris May, Garry Rance, Simon Roberts, James Sharp, Cameron Thompson) for undertaking work to protect aircrews in high threat environments.
  • SEA’s Common External Communications System Team (Darren Boyle, Richard Deighton, Noel Tovey-Grindlay, Michael Hardy, Dave McKay, Dan Pettitt, Rebecca Savage, Ingrid Weeks) for their work to win the contract and then design and develop a new version of SEA’s innovative submarine communication system.
  • MASS’s Common Planning System Team for successfully delivering an extensive new software system that underpins a challenging and critical customer capability.
  • EID’s Naval Communications Team (Paulo Pereira, Pedro Silva, Jose Taborda) for winning an important multi-customer contract valued at €14m.

Bronze awards went to:

  • SEA’s Torpedo Launch System Team (Eric Abretti, Geoff Bray, Dan Fishlock, Paul Knight, Mark Bowden, Jim Hunt) for its committed, effective and highly professional work for the Royal Malaysian Navy.
  • SCS’s Business System Implementation Team (Phil Butler, Alison Cutts, Toni Searle, Andrea Soulsby) for implementing a new finance and project management system.
  • SEA’s Apache Bid Team (Annabel Brown, Fiona Cruickshank, Simon Smith) for a £1.6m contract, the largest ever win in their part of the business.
  • MASS’s Royal Thai Air Force Thurbon Team (Russell Booth, Elliot Carter, Martin Colegate, Keith Lawson, Dean McKeigue, Michaela Newton, Dave Sweeting, Sav Phillips) for the first live implementation of this highly complex software product.
  • SCS’s ISG support team (John Austin, Kevin Baldwin, Dave Gibbard, James Law, Steve Lummis, Graham Nicholson) for making a significant breakthrough into the commercial sector with an offering that was previously purely military.
  • EID’s Egypt Vehicle Intercom System Team (Fancisco Pedro, Fernando Pimenta) for making significant improvements to an existing product and ramping up production to high volume in a very demanding timescale.

Andy Thomis, Cohort Chief Executive, said:

“All of the award winners should be proud of their achievements, which encapsulate what we are trying to achieve at Cohort. Together we make a real contribution to the UK’s security and military capabilities. The commitment, professionalism and skill of the award winners recognised at this event