Our Story by John Goodhind
Beacon is a family-founded and run business that is proud to be celebrating its 30th year in the industry. We take great pride in our heritage, and it is the driving force for maintaining the brands’ reputation of quality and excellence in service.
Negative Pressure Units (NPUs) and Vacuum Cleaners
As the new millennium approached, many customers were begging us to produce a range of negative pressure units and vacuum cleaners to complement our ever-increasing range of decontamination systems.
By this time, we had a well-established dealer network throughout Europe, with our own service centres in Germany and Holland, so it made good sense to expand our range.
As luck would have it, Andy Lewis-Thomas, now Director at Beacon, who had extensive knowledge in designing and manufacturing Negative Pressure units and vacuum cleaners, approached us with the idea of expanding Beacon International into this market.
Establishing ourselves as a major manufacturer and supplier of these machines – is the ideal solution to complement our vision for growing the business.
During this period of rapid expansion, Beacon twice outgrew its manufacturing locations resulting in the eventual purchase of our current 45,000 sqft Head Office and manufacturing base at Desborough, Northampton.
Introducing Consumables
Over the years, Beacon International continued to expand both within the UK and worldwide despite the fact that we had concentrated on plant hire, equipment sales and servicing and somewhat neglected the supply of consumables.
Our Mantra has always been ‘sure and steady’, and as experts in capital plant sales and service, we were reluctant to expand into the consumables marketplace without having someone within the company who understood the supply chain – meet Danny Black, now Director at Beacon.
Danny joined us in 2014, coming from within the industry and therefore being the ideal candidate to support our desire to expand into consumables. He has since been the driving force behind opening trade counters and service centres in London, Desborough and Leeds to ensure the continuation of excellent nationwide service for which Beacon International had become renowned.
Beacon International is now a global manufacturer and supplier, far from the cottage industry I surveyed when I entered the Asbestos Removal Industry in 1986. My wife and I still remember working day and night to help manufacture equipment and then the other half of the night to catch a ferry to France, Belgium or Holland to ensure our customers received their orders on time.
I am proud of all our employees over the years who have played a part in maintaining our reputation for quality products and excellent service.
New Venture ‘Down Under’
Our latest expansion is to the Southern Hemisphere with the acquisition of our ‘Down Under’ dealer ARE New Zealand. I am confident there will be a further expansion for Beacon International, and we will continue to go from strength to strength. Thank you to all our many customers for their much appreciated continuing support.
John Goodhind (2021)