Kildare Business Awards

What it meant to our Winners…

Employee of the Year Award – John Mitchell, Barretstown

This was a huge honor for me personally and professionally, and very unexpected. The Kildare Chamber have been a fantastic driving force behind bringing businesses and people in Kildare together. I attended my fist network morning meeting in 2019 and was impressed immediately. I have made some fantastic contacts and some good friends along the way. I was delighted to represent Barretstown in this category and delighted for our fantastic organisation to get some recognition. I am very conscious that while I am the fortunate one who received this award there is an amazing team of hard working and dedicated people I get to work with daily. I received the award on behalf of all the employees in Barretstown who work, each day, to improve the lives of children affected by serious illness. Thank you to the Chamber and all the team in Barretstown.

Excellence in Communications – Intel Ireland

“We were delighted to receive the Excellence in Communications award at the County Kildare Chamber awards 2022. The award is a wonderful recognition of our commitment to share information about our operations here in Ireland, including our environmental strategy, in a clear, transparent, and comprehensive way. We take great pride in hosting communication channels, and implementing communication strategies, that enable us to directly and authentically engage in meaningful conversations with stakeholders across Ireland. We strive to create long-term relationships with our audiences that are built around the topics that matter most to them. We are particularly proud that the award reflects our environmental messaging across a number of innovative campaigns, such as the Intel Ireland Water story and the ‘What do you see’ animation series. The award recognised Intel Ireland’s strong passion for sustainability and the environment around us and how we communicate it.

The award is one of the first to recognise excellence in communications in this way. Throughout the application process we had the opportunity to showcase all of our key campaigns and the application form made this easy to do in a logical and straightforward way. The Chamber are always approachable for any questions if needed.”

Innovations in Business - Terra NutriTECH

Terra NutriTECH was fortunate to win this years Innovation in Business award. Receiving an award like this from a leading chamber of commerce in Ireland validates much of the hard work our team has undertook in the last few years. Attending a great networking evening in the awards ceremony, helps cement relationships with other business leader in the county as well as giving our hard working team a well earned enjoyable night. I very much look forward to next years gala event.

Large Business of the Year - Crystal Air Ltd

It was once said: “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we are curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

Crystal Air was established over 25 years ago. Both owners Domnick Ward, Managing Director, and David O’Brien, Contracts Director, work closely in the company’s day-to-day running with a hands-on approach to getting things done. Looking back on our achievement we know that our team of over 120 staff are the backbone to our success. Our company revenues since we started have generate almost 200M euro since 1997, where we have won numerous awards along the journey, and installed 2160+ projects. We are humbled and proud that we would even be considered for the Kildare Business Awards 2022 in the nomination for “Best Performing Large Business of the Year”.

The industry award was sponsored by Eoin Gannon of the Gannon Group and hosted in Killashee Hotel. The venue was super and entertainment by Keith Barry just shows how other Kildare businesses are world-class. It is an acknowledgement of a job well done and justification for our efforts and challenging work. When considering the application, we identified innovation as a major component of what we do that makes us that little bit different from our competitors. Being part of a large network such as the Kildare Chamber and making the effort to keep involved repays us over and over again.

Well done to all the finalists and overall winners and the very best wishes to everyone for 2023.

Sustainable Development - Barretstown

Barretstown was honoured to win the Sustainable Development award, its fantastic recognition of our commitment to sustainability at Barretstown. Sustainability is a key focus of Barretstown’s overall strategy and our target to be carbon neutral by 2028. Barretstown strives to ensure we positively impact the environment, our people, and the communities we serve. Our new master plan sets out Barretstown’s development strategy for the next five years and its primary concept is to promote sustainable development in close proximity to the existing historical buildings on the Estate. Sustainability is at the heart of Barretstown. We wish to thank Kildare Chamber for the honour.

Best Emerging Business – RGN Electrical and Communications Ltd.

We were over the moon to win the award and it really meant a lot to all our super staff. We knew we had chance at winning the award, after a few very busy and productive years in which we have built up a great business model in such a short amount of time, however we never actually expected to win it, and we knew we were up against some stiff competition in the other nominees in our category. We put a good bit of time and effort into the application which was a good reflection on how far we have come over the last 5 years in business. Winning the award brought great exposure to the company and we have relished a great period since. It has really lifted our company profile and it’s an award we are very proud of.

2023 is shaping up to be another extremely busy year and we have already secured a large volume of work and recruited some additional senior staff to see us through this busy period and keep building and maintaining our company values. We would like to give thanks to all involved in the County Kildare Chamber, for the on-going support you have shown us over the years. We look forward to entering another category again this year.

Excellence in Customer Service - CarveOn

We were thrilled to win the Award for Excellence in Customer Service at the 2022 Kildare Business Awards. Winning it was a huge honour and achievement for us as a team, particularly considering the calibre of the nominees we were up against.

As part of the application, we had to demonstrate our dedication to customer service by outlining our policies and procedures, detailing our staff training programs, and providing customer testimonials that showcased how we try and go above and beyond. We try to make our service as personal as the products we make.

Since we started CarveOn Leather in 2011, being based in Co. Kildare has been fantastic for us. It’s a great place to do business. Being part of the Kildare Chamber gives great access to the local business community who have been very supportive to us as we’ve tried to scale our business.

Looking back on our win, we are most of all incredibly proud of our team. We remain committed to delivering exceptional customer service and to being a valued member of the Kildare business community. We would like to thank our local clients for recognising our hard work and dedication. We will continue to strive for excellence in everything we do.

Small-Medium Business of the Year, Net Zero Achievement AND Overall Business of the Year - T&I Fitouts Ltd.

It was an incredible honour, to be recognised in our home county like that was amazing, a County Championship of the business world! We submitted three entries at this year’s awards and put a lot of work into our submissions to reflect how far we had grown as a company in recent years. Not only commercially, but also in regards of our innovative Sustainability and Health & Wellbeing initiatives, as we continue on our journey to push ahead of the curve in the Fit-Out industry.

It was an amazing night and we would like to sincerely thank the Kildare Chamber for all their hard work in putting on a such a wonderful event. And to come away with three award wins on the night, including Overall Business of the Year, against some other fantastic Kildare Businesses was immensely rewarding for everyone associated with T&I Fitouts.

Diversity, Equality & Inclusion – Dooley Cummins Architects & Engineers Ltd.

At its simplest level, the Kildare County Chamber Awards evening was a great opportunity to give our staff a night out and an occasion to dress up for something special as a reward for their hard work during 2022. It was also great for us, as an SME, to feel part of something bigger within the business community, especially when you saw the calibre of fellow nominees.

Being nominated in two categories had already contributed to giving us a lot of positive publicity in advance of the event via Social Media. The Chamber did a great job on spreading the word. On the night itself, it added a bit of excitement to the proceedings – at bit like being at one of Co. Kildare’s racecourses and hoping you have backed the winner. Winning an award was the icing on the cake. It has been a tremendous boost to staff morale and something everyone felt part of and very proud of. We were pleasantly surprised at the extent of coverage for the winners and the feedback we continue to receive from our clients and business contacts. We will be entering again in 2023.

Excellence in the Community - Glenveagh Homes

The Glenveagh team was immensely proud to get shortlisted and subsequently win the Excellence in the Community award at the recent Kildare Chamber Awards. We work hard to understand and engage with our communities, having developed a full strategy around community engagement across Kildare over the past year. Our community and sponsorship funds have provided invaluable support to local initiatives in Maynooth, Leixlip, Kilcock, Newbridge and Kildare town including everything from grassroots sponsorship to local event support and other initiatives close to the heart of our communities.

Our awards application focused on the breadth of recent community activity and case studies across all Kildare communities including a successful Community Day for Ledwill Park residents, Kilcock; sponsorships that made a difference like Athgarvan LGFA jersey sponsorship enabling the newly formed U11 girls to play competitively as well as our charity fundraising for the Jack & Jill Foundation in Newbridge.