Former OATA chief executive Keith Davenport has been presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the organization. Keith received the award at the AQUA 2017 Dinner in Telford last week.

Keith was recruited to help set up and run a new trade association, originally called OFI UK, to tackle a number of big issues facing the industry at the beginning of the Nineties. Renamed OATA in 1997, he took  the organisation from strength to strength, raising standards and awareness over a quarter of a century.

Keith arrived as a fresh-faced lecturer at Sparsholt Agricultural College where he taught the ornamental fish-related courses. He was recruited by Richard Sankey and Dave Keeley to help set up and take forward a new trade association to tackle a number of big issues threatening the industry in the 1990s.

The fact that OATA members – and indeed all companies that work within the ornamental aquatic industry – are still doing business is largely down to Keith’s tenacious efforts on our behalf.

He’s represented UK businesses at national, European and even world level and OATA estimates that because of his work he’s saved the industry more than £250 million in that time.