Kelbrook: a Greek’s odyssey

At the age of 34 Dennis Mendoros took the biggest gamble of his life. He gave up his job as a high-flying executive in the Greek aerospace industry and moved his family to England to set up his own business.
With the whole of the world to choose from, he opted for Lancashire and the small village of Kelbrook, on the outskirts of Colne, as the base for his new business, Euravia Engineering. Mendoros had researched the global aerospace business and decided that Lancashire would be the ideal location.

“I came to Pendle specifically because of Rolls-Royce,” he recalled. “The company had just moved its design capability to Derby and had left behind a strong pool of highly-skilled engineers.”
With what has been described as a “dads’ army of over-60s”, he set out to prove there was a niche market for a highly competent engineering company to pick up smaller contracts that the multi-nationals were not interested in.

Small is a relative concept in the aerospace industry and Euravia’s first contract was a £2.2 million deal to refurbish a RB211 jet engine for the Royal Air Force.

“It was a calculated risk,” recalled Mendoros. “We had three months to deliver the engine and if we had missed the deadline we would have been out of business.”

Needless to say, the engine was delivered on schedule and the Ministry of Defence remains a key customer.

Mendoros was born in The Sudan where his father ran a shipping business. The family was forced back to Greece it was nationalised by the Sudanese government.

After high school in Greece, Mendoros went to study aeronautical engineering at Perth in Scotland. It was that there he learned to fly, financing his lessons by repairing cars for fellow students.

Back in Greece, he did his national service – with the air force naturally – but rather than become a pilot, he realised that there were more opportunities for those who kept their feet on the ground.

Commissioned as an administrative officer, he eventually became adjutant to the commander of the tactical air force, based at Larisa in central Greece, and made a point of being around whenever any representatives of civil suppliers appeared at headquarters to make presentations.

“I came to realise the hugeness of the market,” he recalled. “I could see that this was where my future lay.”

After three-and-a-half years he left the air force to work for General Electric in Greece, where he specialised in quality procedures, and then moved to the newly-formed Hellenic Aerospace Industry. He became project manager for all foreign contracts and by the time he had taken the decision to run his own business, his division was turning over $64 million of business a year.

After Euravia’s first contract with the RAF, other work came from NATO and US companies and Mendoros supplemented the engineering work by representing much larger companies.

“We established Euravia as a prime contractor and we are still one of the very few SMEs with that status,” he said. “We started by taking on the work that no other companies wanted. We had experts in-house and we specialised in solving difficult technical issues. Being a small company we were far more flexible.”

Today, Euravia employs more than 50 highly-qualified engineers and is on target to double its turnover in the next three-to-five years. It has more than 50 customers on every continent and has also achieved design approval from the Ministry of Defence, which opens up new markets.

Mendoros has a strong sense of public duty and believes that business people should put something back into their communities.

Back in 1994 he was one of the first to join the Consortium of Lancashire Aerospace and became its chairman. Under his direction, the organisation – now called the North West Aerospace Alliance – grew to have 750 member companies with a combined workforce of 60,000 people and a turnover of more than £7 billion. He stepped down as chairman two years ago.

He also spent six years on the board of the North West Development Agency, only stepping down when he had completed the maximum two terms of office. Among other posts he was a member of the Bank of England North West economic panel, chairman of the Pendle Strategic Partnership, a trustee of the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester and a director of the Lancashire Economic Partnership.

“I have been very fortunate to have been able to start my own business in England,” he said. “I thought it was only right for me to make the effort to say thank you to the wider community.”

Mendoros, now a UK citizen, has seen his efforts rewarded with an OBE for services to industry and with the title of Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire. Winning the Lancastrian of the Year title at the Bibas was another highlight.