Award for good citizen

Shire of Roebourne Citizen of the Year Grant Cucel has had a busy past year, but 2013 is looking even busier.

He said it was a great honour to accept the award for Citizen of the Year, but he had gained it with the support of others.

Mr Cucel thanked his wife Donna, in particular.

“There is no way I could put in the level of hours and commitment that I do without her

and her ongoing support,” he said.

“I’d like to thank Rachel Whiting from the Small Business Centre who I work with on a regular basis.

“David Hipworth as well, he also was involved in supporting me for recommendation and I work with him with some other organisations.”

Mr Cucel also thanked Horizon Power for its work in supporting the community, helping Roebourne to become a vibrant city of the future.

With his work as chairman of the Small Business Centre West Pilbara, Mr Cucel said the team had been working on a business incubator project for Karratha along with Onslow and Tom Price.

“The concept of the business incubator is that it lowers the barrier to entry for small businesses,” he said.

“(It) gives them a chance to become established and then they go on to contribute to not only the local economy but also the total social fabric of the town and the community.”

For the year ahead, as citizen of the year, Mr Cucel said he had plenty to get done.

“One of my biggest goals is to bring this business incubator to commercial reality,” he said.

“It’s a major project, what we are trying to achieve is a greater number of small businesses.

We’ve roughly got about half the number of small businesses in the Pilbara compared to the State average so we really want to reverse that.

“(We are) trying to create greater economic diversification which is a very important element for our future growth and diver