Back home and bringing world with him

Jun 8 2009 By Karen Dent, The Journal

Lots of luck, hard work and a passion for the North East are key to the make-up of former brewery boss turned tourism champion Geoff Hodgson. Karen Dent reports.

Although his heart is in the North East and promoting the region, he has no regrets about leaving for the first part of his career.

He spent two and a half years "literally getting on and off planes" when he worked for Coca-Cola and loved every minute of it.

"Again it was pure luck that at the time in the very small team the Americans had in London, most of the others had young families. I didn’t it, and it was like: "Does somebody want to go to Barcelona today?" Yeah, go and get your bag and go. It was great.

"I think you can burn yourself out doing it and I’ve had colleagues who’ve burnt out their private lives because they’ve never been there. I think as a young guy, late 20s, early 30s, it was just a great, fantastic experience.

"I’m fortunate enough to have been to Seattle. You think we’ve got public art – every street corner in Seattle has a piece of public art.

"You build a building in Seattle, on the planning terms are that you put 1% of the cost of the building into a piece of art which the public must have access to.

"We’ve done well with all the things we’ve got here, but you go to a city like that and you bring learning back."

People who have brought back ideas from elsewhere and put them into action in the North East have played a vital part in the region’s resurgence, he reckons.

"I think what I would urge anybody to do is actually set out your stall to go away because a lot of what’s going on up here is because people have gone to other parts of the world, other parts of the country and seen how they do it there and then brought it back," he says.

"A lot of lawyers in Newcastle now in senior jobs actually went to London and have come back and guess what, we’ve had a booming few years of law because not only have they brought the learning back, they’ve brought the contacts back.

"We can’t afford to be insular any more – there’s a big bad world out there and we need to be fighting above our weight.

"That’s been one of the issues for the tourism sector, we’ve always put our light under a bushel – that famous saying Britain’s best kept secret – well actually, that’s appalling, it shouldn’t be a secret, it should be on the world stage, which we are now.

"We’ve always taken it for granted that we’re quite good at it – the reality is if you go to America and you go and work with McDonald’s and Burger King, you learn about service, you learn about signage, you learn about quality."

We met in the sixth floor restaurant of the Baltic, and he points to the window overlooking the Tyne.

"We’re sat here in the Baltic – Sage, Baltic, Bridge, Angel – you think about all the things that have gone on in the last few years. It’s been a fantastic journey.

"We’re almost at the point now, particularly with the tourism agenda, where people are now coming to visit us to work out what we’ve done and actually take our ideas and export them around the rest of the country."

The top floor of the gallery is a special place for Mr Hodgson because the restaurant is now run by another company in which he has an interest. Since the sale of the Federation Brewery to Scottish & Newcastle in 2005, he’s had what he calls a "plural existence" – he runs a cash register company, has a property portfolio and a handful of non-executive directorships. "The latest, of which is I’m chairman, is Fresh Element, which is the business which had this restaurant and the rest of the location here," he says.

"Two young guys – 26 and 27 – IT graduates from Newcastle University came up with an idea five years ago for doing what they call a meal pack, which are ‘posh’ ready meals and that evolved into outside catering. "They’ve been in bed with a guy called Richard Sim – a very, very good chef – since almost the start and I got asked to mentor them last summer when they were trying to get the catering here. I started off as a mentor and then they asked me to become the chairman."

Hodgson acts as a mentor to a number of businesses and has two mentors of his own.

He says: "I think the whole concept of helping other people is essential and that is one of the reasons why more of the businesses around here have been successful. There are now formal networks like the Entrepreneurs’ Forum, the Alchemists, the Bridge Club."

He believes the opportunities are now here to build a career in the region in certain sectors without having to spend your life in London.

"I think that’s very, very true of things like professional services – the law, accountancy, architecture – we’re got some world class architecture firms based here that are doing work all over," said Hodgson.

"I think it’s a bit harder on the industrial side because we are geographically isolated and it’s not a place you’re going to see lots more big industries open up." Away from work, Hodgson likes to spend a lot of his leisure time outdoors. "I fish, I ski, I run – I’ve got an 11th Great North Run coming up. It gets harder. The knees are giving out! And I’m doing the Blaydon Race next week," he said.

"I come home from work, pull my shoes on and run around the Town Moor. I enjoy the products of the industry – I enjoy food and I enjoy drink – so it’s good for me and it’s also good thinking time. No phone – you can’t take your phone running."

He was first sponsored in the Great North Run when he was part of the fundraising group for the children’s hospice at St Oswald’s in Gosforth.

"We’re now back raising money for the adult day centre, which hopefully will open at the end of the year," he said.

"It’s been an interesting journey because the first time round we did everything from organising a big ball, we did quiz nights, we picked up complete strangers by the ankles and shook them, and took large amounts of money off them. That has been very important to me."

His beneficiary from this year’s Great North Run will be the Puffin Appeal, which is raising money to build a care centre for children with cystic fibrosis.

"The last time I did the run sponsored was for St Oswald’s. I was retiring from the brewery, and I wrote to everyone in the industry and said: ‘This is the last time I’ll ever ask you for money’. That might have been a white lie!"

Page 3: The Interview