Ferrel, who co-founded Sydney-based Cactus Imaging with Warwick Spicer in 1992 before selling it to private equity-backed Opus in 2008, called the Fespa award “a huge honour”.
The awards, which were designed to recognise “the leading lights of the wide-format print community”, received 6,000 votes for 400 printers in 40 countries and were announced during the trade show, which took place on 21-24 February.
The Hall of Fame winner was Rich Thompson, president of US company AdGraphics, who was officially crowned Fespa Print Champion 2012.
Ferrel was fourth on the list, after Thompson, Kishore Musale of Classic Stripes in India and Birol Fedai of Turkey’s Sistem Printing.
The fifth spot went to Simon Pless of Germany’s Erler & Pless.
Ferrel told ProPrint he was at Fespa Digital for the trade show not the awards, which he “didn’t have a hope in hell” of winning.
He called the award: “A bit of surprise and a bit overwhelming.”
Ferrel is now general manager of strategic development at Opus, while Cactus is run by general manager Nigel Spicer.
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