Following the announcement in the New Year Honours List 2012, Roy Wakeman, CEO of BWF Member The Performance Timber Products Group and third-time President of the British Woodworking Federation, has received the Order of the British Empire.
At the Investiture ceremony on Wednesday 14 March, which tradition dictates takes place in the Ballroom at Buckingham Palace, The Queen awarded the honour to Roy in recognition of his services to the Joinery Manufacturing Industry.
Roy Wakeman, OBE, comments: “I am very pleased and proud to have received this honour on behalf of the Joinery Industry. It is also a credit to the many people that I have worked with in the nigh on 50 years since I started as a management trainee with Montague L Meyer in Hull in 1964.”
“For most of my career I have been in manufacturing and have witnessed incredible change in the structure of the industry through major consolidation and a remarkable improvement in the quality and performance of our finished products. This has come about by sheer hard work and persistence by the many people, both present and past, who have worked with me and other key players in the British Woodworking Federation deploying its product certification and marketing schemes.”
“The support that is provided by the industry's Trade Association is and has been vital to our success and the resurgence of timber as the preferred material of the Millennium.”
Roy is widely recognized as the leading figure in the joinery and woodworking manufacturing industry. He is the name behind many successful business initiatives and under his leadership has transformed ailing businesses into innovative and profitable companies, championing product innovation and providing security to hundreds of employees.