EADT - Farewell to chamber chief -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 2/14/2006
Last Visited: 2/15/2006
New chief executive John Dugmore (centre) with president Andy Rayner (left) and Bob Feltwell at Suffolk Chamber of Commerce
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IN 15 years as chief executive of Suffolk Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Shipping, Bob Feltwell has travelled more than half a million miles and given nearly 1,000 interviews promoting Suffolk businesses to the rest of the world.
So tomorrow, when he stands from the role, he will leave with plenty to be proud of.
As reflects on his time as chief executive of Suffolk Chamber he recounts one success story after another and has plenty of examples of its trailblazing activities over the years.
There's Chamber Telecom, for example, a company he set up to offer chambers across the country cheap telephone calls, which has made a profit of £1million in the four years since its inception.
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Bob has personally led 35 missions, mainly to the Far East, which he believes have netted the region more than £60million worth of business.
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Bob Feltwell grew up on a family poultry farm in Sussex.At university he gained an honours degree in economics and business studies, specialising in industry.
In the late 1960s he became a graduate apprentice with Rolls Royce aero engine division at Derby and later project manager for the Trident B3 booster engine.Sensing all was not well with the company, he left before the crash to join Standard Telephones and Cables, where he was involved in production in the UK and Belgium.
A period with the Pauls Group in Ipswich followed, which gave him his first taste of the benefits of international trade, before spending 11 years with Eastern Counties Farmers, running four production plants and a distribution fleet for the whole of East Anglia.
He joined the chamber in 1990, becoming only the fourth chief executive of Suffolk Chamber of Commerce since it was first registered in August 1884.
At that time the chamber's offices were in Foundation Street, Ipswich.Bob masterminded the subsequent move to the Suffolk Enterprise Centre in Russell Road before becoming involved in the campaign to bring the then derelict Felaw Maltings back to life.