At the Awards ceremony held during the recent Fespa show in Barcelona Ferrel was fourth on the list of the top five wide format printers, seeing off competition form more than 400 printers from 40 countries around the world.

He says, “It is a real honour, which I accept not for myself but for all the team at Cactus, who together with co-founder Warwick Spicer and myself built up the business from nothing to be the biggest wide format printer in Australasia.”

Ferrel and Spicer established Cactus in 1992 with just themselves and a VersaTek printer, and have achieved consistent growth ever since. The pair sold the business to private equity backed Opus four years ago. Ferrel is now general manager of strategic business development.

Ferrel was at the show in Barcelona as a guest speaker, and says it was ‘a bit of a surprise to be called out at the Awards event.’

The Fespa Hall of Fame is the international award which recognises the leading lights of the wide format print community. After a successful campaign prior to and during Fespa Digital 2012 in Barcelona, the votes were counted and verified. The Hall of Fame received 6,000 votes for more than 400 printers in 40 countries.

The winner who becomes the World Print Champion for the Fespa Hall of Fame 2012 was Rich Thompson of AdGraphics in the USA, second place went to Kishore Musale of Classic Stripes of India, in third was Birol Fedai of Sistem Printing in Turkey, with Simon Pless of Erler & Pless in Germany taking fifth spot.

Duncan MacOwan, head of events and new media for Fespa comments: “The Fespa Hall of Fame can be hailed as a success. The number of nominations and votes exceeded our expectations as printers voted in their droves from countries all over the world. The winners of this award must be proud as this is an amazing accolade voted for by their peers.”

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