Export Award Winners Announced

A record-high attendance of 350 people gathered this evening to see one of Nova Scotia's up-and-coming information technology companies capture the Outstanding Export Performance Award at the 16th Nova Scotia Export Achievement Awards in Halifax.

InfoInterActive of Bedford was one of nine export achievement award winners honoured during the evening. Recipients were recognized for their exporting success during the previous year.

Unique Patterns Designs Ltd. was also an award winner. The Dartmouth company received the MTT Global Opportunity Award. This special award teams a Saint Mary's University MBA student with a growing IT company that would welcome the marketing expertise of a student for one work term. Unique Patterns Designs also claimed the New Exporter Award.

Other Export Achievement Award winners included:

• Electrobraid Fence Ltd., Upper Nine Mile River, East Hants, for innovation

• Jacques Whitford and Associates Ltd., Dartmouth, Envirosoil, Bedford, and Inland Technologies, Truro, for partners in exporting/alliance

• Eastcan Geomatics Ltd., Halifax, for export growth

• Satlantic Inc., Halifax, for new market development

• Convergys Corp., Dartmouth, for economic impact

"The exporting performance of these companies last year was exceptional," said Premier John Hamm. "And such performance keeps our economy growing. By increasing the number of products and services they sell outside of Nova Scotia, these companies are creating jobs and generating revenues for Nova Scotians right here at home."

A special feature was added to the program this year. Premier Hamm presented Millennium Awards to nine of Nova Scotia's largest companies for their contribution to the Nova Scotia economy.

Included in this list of manufacturing or processing companies, all long-time exporters with more than 500 employees, are: High Liner Foods, Lunenburg; Stanfield's Ltd., Truro; TrentonWorks Ltd., Trenton; Bowater Mersey Paper Company, Liverpool; Scotia Investments, Hantsport; Stora Enso, Port Hawkesbury; Michelin, Granton, Bridgewater, and Waterville; IMP Group, Halifax and Amherst; Clearwater Fine Foods Ltd., Bedford.

"Nova Scotia exports enjoyed a phenomenal surge in growth during 1999," said Economic Development Minister Gordon Balser. "In fact, we've led the national average in growth for the last two years."

According to Statistics Canada, Nova Scotia recorded a 15.6 per cent increase in the export of goods in 1999, almost double the growth of each of the previous two years.

The awards are jointly presented by Nova Scotia Economic Development and the Alliance of Manufacturers and Exporters, Nova Scotia division. Ian Gillespie, president and CEO of the Export Development Corporation, was the guest speaker.

For the first time, eight private sector corporations signed on as award sponsors. They are MTT, Knowledge House, Sable Offshore Energy, Stora Enso, the Export Development Corporation, Michelin, Composites Atlantic and Clearwater.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Profiles of each of the award-winning companies are available below.

2000 EXPORT ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

New Exporter: Unique Patterns Designs Ltd.

Incorporated in 1994, Unique Patterns Designs Ltd. of Dartmouth offers the home sewing and small manufacturing markets the ability to instantly manipulate commercial patterns into made-to- measure patterns that are guaranteed to fit. In 1999, Unique Patterns Design entered into a partnership with Butterick/Vogue and launched a sister company, Virtually Yours Inc. Since 1998, Unique Patterns Design's exports have doubled and made their way to the U.S., United Kingdom and other parts of Europe as well as Singapore and Australia.

Innovation Award: Electrobraid Fence Ltd.

Hants-based Electrobraid Fence Ltd. is the inventor, manufacturer, and distributor of patent pending electric fence and insulators for the horse, cattle and wildlife control market. The product bends and stretches without breaking, while carrying an electric charge over much longer distances. Its polyester fibre jacket gives the kind of strength needed in parachute harnesses and seatbelts. The company's exports jumped ninefold in its first two years in business and are expected to double or triple again by the end of 2000. Electrobraid's products can already be found in the U.S., Japan, Brazil, Mexico, the U.K., Switzerland, Italy and France.

Export Growth Award: Eastcan Geomatics Ltd.

Halifax-based Eastcan Geomatics Ltd. is a computer mapping firm and member of the MacDonnell Group. It has a staff of more than 120 professional and technical personnel, including engineers and specialists in environmental management, management consulting and information technology. The company was one of the first in the world to make advanced U.S. military technology usable for civilian applications like enhanced 911, highway planning and solid waste management. Already established in the U.S., Caribbean and Latin American markets, Eastcan has most recently added India to the list of countries in which it is now doing business.

New Market Development Award: Satlantic Inc.

When NASA was looking for a way to measure the accuracy of the satellite data it was retrieving from the earth's oceans, it needed optical sensors that didn't exist anywhere. However, their search led to the founding of Satlantic by a Dalhousie professor who had been a NASA employee. Satlantic is one of the world's leading remote sensing companies. In ten years, the company has grown to 55 employees and its products are recognized around the world for their sophistication, precision and ruggedness. Another division provides customers with the ability to acquire and exploit satellite data, and is a leader in the use of satellite data for ocean surveillance. Over 80 per cent of Satlantic's business comes from the international marketplace, including, the U.S., Japan, Europe, South America, and South-east Asia.

Partnership in Exporting Award: Jacques Whitford, Envirosoil Ltd., and Inland Technologies

Jacques Whitford, Envirosoil Ltd., and Inland Technologies formed a formidable consortium offering expertise found in very few places in the world market. Against major international competition, the consortium won a $23 million dollar contract in Brunei to remediate that country's, and also one of Southeast Asia's, largest waste sites. The three companies have made advances to existing thermal treatment technology and to new applications of liquid waste separation technology. Jacques Whitford is one of Canada's leading environmental consulting companies, Envirosoil Ltd. is Atlantic Canada's largest civil contracting company, and Inland Technologies is a leading exporter of cutting-edge liquid waste treatment technologies.

Outstanding Export Performance Award: InfoInterActive, Bedford

In 1997, Bedford-based InfoInterActive launched Internet Call Manager, the world's first service to allow Internet users to monitor and manage calls while their phone lines are busy. It leads the marketplace with the development of new call management products for the high-speed Internet and wireless markets. Its products have already handled more than 50 million calls for North American customers alone. It has strategic partnerships with leaders in the telecommunications and technology industries, including Intel, Bell Atlantic, Cisco, Prodigy Communications, and Witchity. Exports in 1999 were up five fold over 1998 and continue to grow at an exponential rate. The company exports to the U.S. and Europe; it holds patents in Canada, the U.S., Australia, and Singapore, with patents pending in 24 other countries.

MILLENNIUM AWARDS

High Liner Foods Inc.

An exporter for more than a century, High Liner Foods now operates throughout North America, with plants in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Hampshire and New Jersey. The company's brands -High Liner, Fisher Boy and Italian Village -are leaders in the frozen seafood and pasta categories. The company continues to be a leading exporter of fresh seafood from Nova Scotia and looks to the new century with optimism for the business opportunities that a changing world will provide.

Stanfield's Ltd.

This Truro firm's products have been to the Yukon gold rush and the front lines of both world wars. In the 1950s, it popularized the t-shirt in Canada. It just bought two American companies to manufacture performance winter underwear for the U.S. Stanfield's has invested heavily in technology and is at the forefront of innovation in its industry. Ultimately, though, what has always distinguished Stanfield's from its competitors is its commitment to quality. They have demonstrated that same commitment to the province and people of Nova Scotia.

TrentonWorks

When Pictou County blacksmiths founded Hope Iron Works in 1872, they couldn't have imagined that the small iron forging shop where they made fittings for wooden ships would become what today is known as TrentonWorks. When the company combined steel operations and a plant to build railway cars under one roof in 1912, it was reported to be the largest plant of its type in Canada. The TrentonWorks facility has not only become one of the leading manufacturers of railway freight cars for the international marketplace, it has full design capabilities and a full complement of in-house engineering services.

Bowater Mersey

Abundant softwood forests and an ice-free harbour led Nova Scotian financier, Izaak Walton Killam, to establish the Mersey Paper Company on the shores of Liverpool Bay in 1929. Bowater purchased the mill in 1956. Today the company produces more than 265,000 tonnes of newsprint a year, using a pulping process that is virtually chemical-free. It is the second-largest private landowner in the province. Bowater Mersey is also involved in many special forestry initiatives, including the Panuke Lake Special Place and four forest recreation areas, which the company maintains. The company employs more than 700 people and provides work for hundreds of private fibre producers, woods contractors and truckers.

Scotia Investments

As early as 1945, the Jodrey family recognized the benefits of diversification and vertical integration and formed Scotia Investments Ltd. to manage its growing corporate interests. Today there are 17 companies operating in Nova Scotia under the Scotia Investments umbrella. Four of its exporting companies are Maritime Paper Products Ltd., Crown Fibre Tube Inc., Minas Basin Pulp and Power Company Ltd. and CKF Inc. All four utilize Nova Scotia ingenuity and protect the environment by using 100 per cent recyclable raw materials, found within the province, to produce paperboard, high performance paper mill cores, high- quality corrugated packaging, and molded pulp products.

Stora Enso

Stora Enso of Port Hawkesbury first began operations in Nova Scotia in 1962. Today it is the largest forest products company in Nova Scotia, producing 350,000 tonnes a year of supercalendered paper for the magazine and catalogue market and more than 185,000 tonnes of newsprint. The company employs 850 in its mill and woodlands operations and works with more than 900 contractor employees in harvesting and trucking wood throughout northeastern Nova Scotia. It celebrated the planting of its 100-millionth tree seedling in 1995, and in 1998 became the first forestry operation in Canada and the second in North America to receive ISO 14001 certification of its Environmental Management System.

Michelin

In 1969, the announcement that Michelin was going to locate manufacturing facilities in Bridgewater and Granton was headline news in Nova Scotia. They expected to hire 1,850 employees. The number of employees has grown to 3,600, working at three plants, the third being in Waterville. Since 1969, more than 144 million tires have been produced at Nova Scotia facilities, and more than three-quarters of those have been exported. Michelin has paid out more than $2.5 billion in salaries and wages in 30 years. Staff turn-over rate is less than one-half of one per cent, and the company spends more than $10 million annually on training. The company has also invested over $2 billion in capital infrastructure and improvements, including $314 million in expansions that should be completed in 2002.

IMP Group

Founded in 1967 with a marine supply business, the IMP Group of companies has grown to become one of the largest privately held enterprises in Nova Scotia. It has branched out internationally into aerospace, aviation, industrial supply, medical supply, and hotels. With more than 3,500 employees worldwide, IMP operations include aircraft engineering, repair and overhaul plants in Nova Scotia, as well as airframe component manufacturing and avionics design and repair. Montreal-based subsidiaries are major players in business aviation. Another subsidiary is the largest independent supplier of medical and surgical supplies in Atlantic Canada. Hotel operations are located throughout the Atlantic Provinces and in Moscow, where they own, with Russian partners, a four-star hotel.

Clearwater Fine Foods

Clearwater Fine Foods has grown over 24 years to become the largest exporter of live lobster in the world. It now harvests a wide range of species, including scallops, shrimp, surfclams, crabs and groundfish from 24 vessels that the company owns. Clearwater's patented dryland pound system allows it to maintain up to 2.5 million pounds of lobster in inventory for up to a year. It has also made other investments in shellfish bio- technology and has worked with government toward integrated resource management.

ECONOMIC IMPACT AWARD

Convergys Customer Management Inc.

Convergys is the global leader in providing outsourced, integrated customer care and billing services, bringing together world-class resources and expertise to help clients transform customer relationships into a competitive advantage. Among its clients are Fortune 100 and 500 companies in the communications, Internet, financial services, health care, and hospitality industries. Convergys software produces more than one million bills a day, and its 35 call centers worldwide handle more than one million calls each day. The in-bound call center in Dartmouth employs more than 1700 people. It handles more than one million calls a month. In 1999, only its second year of operation, the value of exports of Convergys jumped nearly sevenfold.

GLOBAL OPPORTUNITY AWARD

Unique Patterns Designs

One of this year's Export Achievement Awards can be described as a job creation award. The Global Opportunity Award teams a growing Nova Scotia exporting company with a Saint Mary's University MBA student seeking meaningful work for a summer work term.

This year, for the second time, MTT sponsors the Global Opportunity Award. The company capturing this award is Unique Patterns Design of Dartmouth.

The student will assess new market opportunities, especially in Europe, for its new product, the Virtual You, and may even make European sales contacts.

The award gives this student a chance to work with an innovative company, with an exciting technology, in a new market. And Unique Patterns will enjoy the benefits of new marketing ideas that take them even further into the global market.