Young firm takes top gong
Winning the two major categories of WSABE in a first attempt at entering any industry awards means a company must be doing a few things right.
Meet the young vibrant team of 20 at Sparks and Partners Consulting Engineers, headed by managing director Leon Dimino, civil engineering manager Morgan Walter and director Bruno Lara.
Sparks and Partners are winners in the Excellence in Small Business and Business of the Year awards.
The company has had a meteoric rise since forming three years ago, amalgamating with another engineering company to become a force in the industry.
Mr Dimino, 32, has firm views on how a company should be run successfully, starting with how staff are treated.
“We are strong internally because we retain staff by being family friendly,” Mr Dimino said.
“We want to employ local people so we are flexible about fi tt ing in family commitments. If they need to take time off to attend family events, bring children into work to do colouring-in in the boardroom, then we allow that. It is a good way to retain staff and have them motivated.”
Understanding people’s strengths and weaknesses was also a good way to get the best out of staff , Mr Dimino said.
Mr Dimino, who has a one-year-old daughter with another child on the way, is renovating his North Rocks home along with running a successful company that keeps on scoring choice projects.
But he is a man who does not do things by halves, as an engineer, he felt he was ready to start his own business with his partners in a leap of faith three years ago.
“I threw my hat over the fence and jumped over to fetch it,” is how he describes his lifechanging decision.
On the growth of the business, Mr Dimino said: “there are two ways to grow- organically or by acquisition’. “We have done both.”
Working hard, Mr Dimino said he would not have thought of entering the awards, if not for the urging of his new marketing manager. “She said we should be entering the WSABEs and also has improved our social media presence,” he said.
It is a strategy that has clearly worked.
Some of the major projects that the Parramatta-based company has worked on are Norwest Private Hospital, Union Place Jannali, The Banc at Bankstown, Loft Sutherland, Adina Apartments
Sydney Airport, Kensington Street Heritage Site, The Mint Willoughby, Watsons Grove Epping, Ruby Tower Victoria Park and Macarthur Square.
One of the company’s most exciting projects was the University of Tasmania’s Experimental Aquaculture Facility, showing the diversity of projects this young company is prepared to take on.
WSABE 2016
Sparks and Partners Consulting Engineers: Winner, Business of The Year and Small Business Category
Business: Multi-faceted engineering company
Highlight: Th e firm has been involved in many major proj ects in Western Sydney
Source: Western Sydney Business Access (WSBA) covers the business and community issues of the Greater Western Sydney region of Australia. WSBA is the popular media source for connecting with the pulse of the region and tapping into it’s vast opportunities and networks.