Dr Mike Ashmead OBE: Following the announcement of his Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in June 2019, Dr Mike Ashmead attended his investiture on Friday 25th October at Windsor Castle, when he was presented with his award by HRH Queen Elizabeth II, (Shown in the main photo, credit: Jonathan Brady/PA). The OBE was awarded in recognition for services to Exports and Innovation in engineering.
Mike started his Huntingdon-based business in 1988; today Encocam Ltd employs over 200 people. He began with an ambition to produce his own aluminium honeycomb and has gone on to developed a business with expertise in the design and manufacture of composite panels, energy absorbers, automotive safety products, and motorcycles. The company, which has developed market-leading products, began exporting in 1990. It is now one of the region’s largest exporters with offices in the UK, Spain, Holland, Germany, US and Japan, exporting over 80% of its total production.
Dr Mike Ashmead, who has a BSc and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Aston University has worked in the Engineering industry as a Chemical Engineer and a Process Development Engineer. Since the company began over 30 years ago, it has innovated and grown to eight divisions ranging from energy absorbers and safety test products for the automotive sector, through to composite and decorative panels, motorbikes and racing products, all inspired by the engineering challenges set by our customers.
In 2017 Cellbond, the Automotive safety division of the company was awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise: International Trade, a great acknowledgement of the company’s progress. In 2018 Encocam celebrated 30 years of innovation and success; events were held across the business with employees, customers, suppliers and partners, to acknowledge this milestone.
Dr Mike Ashmead OBE started his company with the goal of manufacturing aluminium honeycomb, to be sold and used all over the world. He was not afraid to take risks then, to achieve this goal, and will continue to do so, actively looking for new challenges.