Lifetime Achievement Award
Winner: Dame Margaret Barbour, chairman, J Barbour & Sons, South Tyneside
Twice over she has triumphed outstandingly during her 33 years in manufacturing. So there's no arguing that Dame Margaret Barbour is anything but a deserving winner this year of the North-East Lifetime Achievement Award - especially when you consider also her generous spirit. Her first triumph came out of tragedy and crisis. She was pitched cruelly and inexperienced into business management at the age of 28 when looking forward instead to raising a family. However, she not only took over running J Barbour & Sons, but has lifted the South Tyneside firm to a global pinnacle. Barbour stands for quality and style in more than 30 countries today, a brand patronised by royalty, aristocracy and - as before - by workaday people going about their jobs. Her second great achievement has only recently become evident. Just a few years ago, during that appalling recession for UK textile manufacturing, Dame Margaret was among a minority to resist pricing pressures from big retailers that were forcing manufacturers to go to cheap-labour factories abroad. Because hers is not a sharelisted company, she could at the same time avoid the spectre of big institutional investors baying at the factory gates for those lower costs to boost share value. Her principle of sustained quality, through jobs and skills kept in the North-East, held firm. Some consolidation was inevitable. But, supported by a talented management and a loyal workforce, Dame Margaret has overcome the odds again - continuing today to employ hundreds of North-East people profitably, to turn out superior and durable garments in their millions. Managing director Steve Buck says: "Dame Margaret is a great encourager of teamwork, a great supporter of her staff. And she always goes out of her way to share credit for any personal awards with the workforce. "She leads through her personal vision for the business and through her personal determination to create a strong future. She cares very deeply for the business, all of her employees and for the North-East. In turn, she is held in the highest regard by all the staff." She has been called the re-inventor of the waterproof - which she is, but far more besides, though you might not guess it when she tells you simply: "I have had a most interesting, successful and rewarding life doing what I'm doing." Dame Margaret held not an MBA but a Diploma of Education when she entered business. She was a teacher with no factory experience. Her husband then, who himself had not long run his family's business, died prematurely. With no natural successor there was, besides the pain of bereavement, this crisis of a company, founded in 1894, awash in uncertainty. But Dame Margaret not only filled the breach as a director. She worked in every department and travelled the world, studying designs and markets. By the time she became chairman in 1972 the firm's future was assured. Producing the right products at the right time, she has turned traditional waxed cotton jackets and other stormwear for fishermen, motorcyclists and submariners into a must-have accessory for the up-market country set and for freespending international followers of fashion. She seized opportunity, repositioning a high-quality business in the market place to give it diversity and wider demand. Her opportunism has also brought success in markets for shoes, boots and bags, clothes in breathable materials, moleskin and tweed - all with the now famous Barbour name, which the buying public know means both quality of product and after-sales service. Doing all this, Dame Margaret has created jobs for a community she knows and loves. She is committed and generous to the North-East. Her name is a fixture of Britain's Rich List, but her generosity to good causes, partly through the Barbour Charitable Trust, is beyond account because a lot is done on the QT, in keeping with her preferred low profile. Beneficiaries range from The Sage Gateshead, the Laing Art Gallery and an air ambulance to charity fetes. Her life has changed beyond imagination since her childhood at Acklam in Middlesbrough, her scholarly days at Middlesbrough High School, her teaching days at Church High School in Newcastle and her student days at Battersea Polytechnic. Dame Margaret has also been married again - to David Ash - and besides her title she was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of Tyne and Wear in 1992. She holds honorary degrees from Sunderland and Newcastle Universities. When Barbour opened its first US store in 2003, Daniel Day-Lewis, Sharon Stone and Michael Caine were among early customers. Meanwhile, on South Tyneside, J Barbour & Sons has been recruiting again and including apprenticeships to perpetuate its North-East craftsmanship. "I am dedicated to the region," this first woman winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award affirms. Public response already to her plaudit suggests the region is dedicated to her too. | 
