The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace relations invited representatives from the company to attend a gala dinner and presentation ceremony for the awards.

Deputy Prime Minister and Employment and Work relations minister, Julia Gillard, conducted the September 4 ceremony in the Great Hall of Parliament House in Canberra.

According to general manager, Greg Clothier, it's the biggest award ever bestowed on the company.

"It's a Federal award that recognises the amount of work and effort the whole company has put into training apprentices," Mr Clothier said.

It was identified in 2004 that the company's future lay in developing a workforce with Fluid Power knowledge and that there was going to be a serious shortage of qualified tradespeople.

Firstly, every trade's assistant was given the opportunity to take up a trade as an adult apprentice.

Then a pre-apprenticeship system was introduced to enable selection of more Australian apprentices, which involved a six week paid work experience period.

At the completion of the trial, apprenticeships were offered.

With the establishment of the Australian Technical College in the Spencer Gulf, Action Engineering acquired a supply of quality students aspiring to commence an Australian apprenticeship.

These students already had a greater percentage of their basic training completed and were available on block release from the college.

While developing apprenticeship opportunities, Action also introduced up-skilling training for all senior tradespeople with the aid of the Whyalla Economic Development Board.

This coupled with the long term planning has now enabled Action Engineering to expand the workforce to 67 employees with 11Australian apprentices.

"Winning the Minister's award is recognition of Action Engineering's future programs and it's participants," Mr Clothier said.

Another Whyalla business, Red Dust Bar and Grill, were runners up for the award, which goes to show that regional businesses can go to big places.