Amid the rugged and coal-rich landscape of the Hunter Valley, innovation has become the bedrock of success for the businesses that prop up the region's $8-billion mining industry.
Hedweld Group of Companies marketing manager Sandy Thomas said that when the company's founder, Ian Hedley, worked in the mines in the 1980s, workplace safety was still in its infancy.
"He used to be able to drive his ute with a welding unit, straight on to the mine site, wearing his best safety gear, like thongs and shorts," Ms Thomas said.
"When he was on the mine sites, he noticed that there were common issues between the different sites that he went to.
"Being a farmer and coming off the farm, they have to solve all their own problems because there's no one else to do it."
What Mr Hedley saw more than four decades ago, led to him founding a company to solve the "very niche problems" of the mining - and later agriculture - sector, by designing and manufacturing products that make it safer for people to do their jobs.
"It's been quite a journey from being on the back of a welding truck to a multi-million dollar advanced manufacturing facility," Ms Thomas said.
Ampcontrol is another Hunter success story that builds solutions for resources, energy and infrastructure sectors.
The company has more than 1100 workers spread across Australia and southeast Asia. Managing director Rod Henderson said with the world in the middle of an energy transition, innovation had never been more important.
"Innovation for us is staying in front of the game. I think if we don't innovate and stand still, we go backwards," Mr Henderson said.
"We've developed an underground electric vehicle, which was the world's first intrinsically safe electric vehicle to go into a coal mining environment.
"We've also developed a number of different standalone power supplies for powering people's homes off the grid that we're rolling out extensively through Western Australia and other rural regions."
Ampcontrol has also just recently released Australia's first stand-alone power supply that has hydrogen generation built into it.
"The Hunter can be a global player in innovation as a whole," Mr Henderson said.
"That's not only in the energy sector, it's everything we still do in the resources sector. When you look at the fantastic things that are going on at the port with the establishment of the energy precinct over there."
- Innovation Ready is an Out of the Square initiative produced in collaboration with Hunter Innovation Festival and the Newcastle Herald to highlight the region as an innovation powerhouse. The videos can be viewed at newcastleherald.com.au and innovationready.com.au
