Buckinghamshire Business Awards: Winning MD and his team are "over the moon"

An Aylesbury company is celebrating after scooping two top honours at the Buckinghamshire Business Awards

Total Carbide Ltd was named company of the year and apprentice and young person employer of the year.

Based in Westcott Venture Park, the business makes everything from bespoke parts for Rolls Royce jet engines to fuel pumps and hospital equipment.

Delighted managing director Andreas Hohmann, who lives in Winslow, said his 23 staff were “over the moon” at the company’s success.

“To have won apprentice and young person employer of the year was a huge achievement for us but to also win company of the year is absolutely amazing,” he said.

“All businesses have had a tough year with the Covid-19 pandemic so I thought that one of the entrants in the healthcare sector would be more deserving. But we are very grateful to have been recognised with this award.

“It’s a credit to our team and to how hard they’ve worked over the last year and it’s a huge morale boost.

“People in manufacturing are not really ‘show’ people. We just do what we do. But this puts us on the map and shows our owners how good we are.

“We’ll look forward to celebrating our success properly when the whole team is back together.”

That entails a huge barbecue for all staff outside the front of Total Carbide’s building when Covid restrictions allow. The apprentices will enjoy a night out playing themed golf in Watford.

The company, part of the Versarien Plc Group, is a huge exporter, supplying extremely hard-wearing, tailor-made parts to 40 different industries.

“We are ambassadors for Buckinghamshire in a way,” said Andreas. “It is appreciated that we are a manufacturing company in Bucks.”

Total Carbide, which has its origins in the 1950s as mining tools specialist Austin Hoy, moved to the venture park five years ago.

It is a huge supporter of young people and has strong links with local schools, particularly Aylesbury High.

The school sends interns for work experience, and the company also offers work based apprenticeships in association with Cranfield University and the OU.

It promotes a culture of continuous learning to all employees and works hard to inspire young people from primary and secondary school education through to work experience, apprenticeships and graduate placements to become the next generation of engineers.

“We realise that we need to recruit good people,” said Andreas. “But you cannot get them from advertising. We need to nurture them.”

The company certainly won’t be resting on its laurels.

It is currently developing ceramics with the Open University for rocket propulsion!

Find out more about Total Carbide Ltd here