Kingfisher Boats was awarded with top honours as Business of the Year at the annual Vernon Business Excellence Awards.
The Business of the Year award is sponsored every year by BDC (Business Development Bank of Canada) and presented this year by Tony Zuschtok, manager of Major Accounts.
Judges noted that Kingfisher’s bid submission was very well presented and clearly showed how they had made some very strategic changes by penetrating new overseas markets and doing a rebrand from their old name, Harbercraft.
The Business Excellence Awards are similar to the Academy Awards in that they are not a popularity contests. Businesses are nominated by the public, but judged and awarded by a panel of business peers. All nominated businesses are invited to submit entries with details to present their best cases.
The information is kept completely confidential to protect proprietary information and only reviewed by the judging panel. The panel is made up of experienced, but non-competing, members of the Vernon business community. They are not made up of chamber of commerce staff or directors to ensure the results are fair and unbiased.
The Greater Vernon chamber organizes and promotes the event on an annual basis to celebrate the contribution businesses make to the region, but the effects span the full calendar year. The top three nominees and winners in each category may use the award logo in publicity and advertising. Each one also gets a video made that is shown live at the gala evening.
The videos are also all loaded on the Vernon Chamber website and YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/greatervernonchamber) and stay there indefinitely.
Congratulations go out to the full slate of winners and they can be found in the full-page colour display ad on page A32 of this paper.
The chamber would also like to thank each of the 120-plus businesses and individuals that generously donated prizes, sponsorships and in-kind contributions that made this event possible. It goes to prove we have a very vibrant and supportive business community.
George Duffy is the general manager of the Greater Vernon Chamber of Commerce.
