Gelderman Landscape Services joined an impressive group of Burlington businesses, when the Burlington Chamber of Commerce announced this year’s winners of the Business Excellence Awards.
The 2015 awards were presented at the Chamber’s Gala on April 7, at the Burlington Convention Centre with nearly 500 business people in attendance.
Gelderman Landscape Services was awarded the Employer of the Year. The list of previous winners includes major companies in Burlington, such as Deloitte, O.C. Tanner and AXYZ International.
“I am honoured to receive this award on behalf of Gelderman Landscape Services. Thank you to the Chamber, judges and greater community,” said company president Nathan Helder.
Heidi Cowie, Incoming Chair of the Burlington Chamber of Commerce, announced the winners.
“Each year, the Chamber is faced with some very difficult decisions to choose award recipients,” said Cowie. “The calibre of businesses operating in Burlington becomes more impressive each year. We had a number of extremely impressive nominations in every category and it becomes increasingly difficult to single out the winners.”
Nathan concluded his acceptance speech, stating, “From our humble beginnings in 1955, our goal has always been, and continues to show care in all that we do. To have thrived over the last 60 years is mainly due to our amazing staff throughout the decades. Our tag line – Caring is in our nature – starts with our staff. We have learned to treat them as assets, not liabilities. We invest in training and treat them well, and they in turn take care of our clients. We believe that our staff comes first, and then customers, not the other way around.”
This is the second business award presented to Gelderman Landscape Services in the past week. On April 1, the company was presented with an Outstanding Business Award from the Flamborough Chamber of Commerce. In the fall of 2015, Gelderman also won the City of Hamilton’s Business Appreciation Award.
Heidi Cowie told the Burlington audience that this star-studded affair is one of the most anticipated business events of the year. She pointed out that the Chamber’s Business Awards Task Force goes through a very thorough process to select finalists and, ultimately, winners. Cowie explained, “Through this process they sometimes find that in some categories there are no nominated companies that met the highest standards required for an award resulting in no award in that category. This speaks not only to the integrity of the process, but to the high calibre of the finalists and the winning companies.”
The Chamber membership includes about 1,000 Burlington-area companies, representing about 30,000 employees.
