Who are they? Meet our entrepreneurs
These are the people who have taken the exciting and daunting step of doing things their way, and making it work, writes Alicia Nally.
Cairns
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These are the people who have taken the exciting and daunting step of doing things their way, and making it work, writes Alicia Nally
FERMENTED KITCHEN
Kristy Plum and Jacob Percy
The owners and directors of kombucha and sauerkraut maker The Fermented Kitchen produce about 400 litres of kombucha and hundreds of litres of sauerkraut each week from their headquarters at Portsmith. The pair wants to educate people on the importance of eating good food, balancing gut health and improving overall wellbeing with a range of tasty, mouthwatering fermented foods and drinks, all hand made and bottled in Cairns.
NOA/Hopscotch
Sam Byrd
Indisputably the best place to eat in Cairns suburbs, NOA was opened in 2014 by Sam and his father Buddy.
The Edge Hill restaurant services breakfast options for all tastes and appetites, lunch, dinner and cocktails, and you’d be hard pressed to find a day of the week at any hour when the place is empty.
The menu draws on local ingredients and uses seasonal produce together with care and attention.
Late last year, Mr Byrd teamed up with Mama Coco’s Davy O’Rourke to create Hopscotch, in the new Barr St Markets precinct.
The new restaurant has become synonymous with Friday night after-work hangouts, family gatherings, pizza lovers, pasta connoisseurs, steak aficionados and lovers of cocktails.
The southside of Cairns has been quick to adopt Hopscotch, just like Edge Hill owns NOA and Westcourt has Mama Coco.
MIHAVEN
James and Sarah Mort
This power couple is transforming the suburbs of Cairns one modern, sleek building at a time.
Construction, design and training company Mihaven is also a registered training organisation and the business makes sure it is part of the future of Cairns by taking on apprentices for the construction industry.
In 1995, Sarah Mort became the first
female project manager for construction
giant Multiplex.
After meeting husband, James, in 2004, the pair settled at Mission Beach and the couple’s fledgling property development business took a battering from two of the region’s biggest cyclones — Larry in 2006 and Yasi in 2011.
But the couple’s resilience paid off when MiHaven won the 2011 Tropical Business Innovation Award for its concept of cyclone-resistant homes.
Combining clever construction with social enterprise, the Morts are designing homes to meet individual needs, reduce energy consumption and suit the tropics.
Partnerships with indigenous communities are also creating affordable housing for remote locations.
AIR FREIGHT HANDLING SERVICES
Barbara Ford
The managing director of Air Freight Handling Services has been in the business for 25 years, starting in Townsville, then moving to Canberra and West Australia, working for the former Australian Air Express.
More than a decade ago she established her business looking after airfreight operations for North Queensland in Cairns and Townsville.
But when Star Track Express took over a big slice of her business, Ms Ford had to diversify into urgent courier work.
CRYSTALBROOK COLLECTION
Ghassan Aboud
Billionaire Syrian developer Ghassan Aboud is changing the skyline of Cairns and the way the Far North hospitality industry provides customer service. Married with five children, Mr Aboud studied journalism before moving to the United Arab Emirates in 1992.
The Ghassan Aboud Group is engaged in a wide range of businesses in the Middle East from cars and related trading to TV news channels and radio.
But it’s his Crystalbrook Collection business, which has added three hotels to the Cairns CBD — Riley opened late last year, Baily is set to open in November and Flynn in 2020 — and numerous cattle stations around the region.
The beef is used in the hotel restaurants and is exported overseas.
PROPERTY DEVELOPERS
Paul and Mark Kamsler
Paul and Mark Kamsler are part of Cairns CBD’s 2019 revitalisation.
The brothers are in the process of rebuilding the old Sejumi Institute building next to the historic Courthouse Hotel on Abbott St.
The three-storey project, which features a cafe and retail space downstairs, will have commercial tenancies on the upper floors.
The Kamslers’ investment firm Coral K Partners, currently in interim offices above the Commonwealth Bank on Lake St, will also shift into the new building.
In 2015 the family sold the 4.5-star Pacific Hotel which they had held since they snapped up Ansett Australia’s half share in the Spence St lodging when the group was disposing of assets in 1998.
NQEA
Fry Family
Started by Dick Fry and carried on by son Don and now grandson Mark, NQEA is a Cairns-based engineering firm which has stood the test of time serving the local market.
Responsible for constructing equipment for use in the sugar industry, the firm also designed and built the ocean-going passenger liner, Oceanic Discoverer.
Oceanic Discoverer incorporates innovative design including a hull design which leads to operational cost savings for the client and performance greatly exceeding specified requirements.
It incorporates a high level of environmental consideration and control.
COMPETESHARK
Shaun Thambayah
In Cairns now as part of the State Government’s Hot DesQ program, which brings tech start-up leaders to the region to work, Shaun Thambayah is one of the city’s most innovative minds.
His web app CompeteShark visually tracks content changes on websites in real time.
The tool also aggregates data to provide users, primarily digital marketers and brand managers, with insights on their customers and competitors.
Co-founders Kiran Kumar and Mr Thambyah previously worked together on digital projects at Suncorp before developing their own start-ups.
CompeteShark exposes the competitive movements in a market’s landscape to allow marketers to make better decisions around growth and strategy while saving them time and money on the analytical process.
GATHAR
Jodie Mlikota
JODIE Mlikota is passionate, hard working and making waves in the social innovation space.
She is the creator of Gathar, which is an innovative peer-to-peer platform connecting people who love to cook with people who love to entertain but hate the hard work.
She is also a student, entrepreneur and CQUniversity Cairns senior development officer.
Through her volunteer work and study in the social innovation space with CQU Cairns and federally funded Young Entrepreneurs
Project, Ms Mlikota successfully snagged a grant through Advance Queensland’s Young Starters Fund to run an innovation weekend in April called Big Fish Cairns.
The event was aimed at students aged 15-24 who wanted to learn about entrepreneurship and innovation.
Her involvement in Big Fish Cairns also resulted in her being selected earlier this year to represent Australia at the Global Startup Weekend Women’s event in Paris.
Originally published as Who are they? Meet our entrepreneurs