HE MAY be one of the most talented, serial entrepreneurs of his generation, with a celebrated track record of starting, growing and selling businesses to major American corporations. But John Cunningham can still remember what it was like when he was forced to emigrate to Canada in the 1960s because he could not find a job in Northern Ireland.

Unlike many others who left at the same time, Cunningham returned and his business success guaranteed he would never have to choose between a job or home again. But he worries that history is repeating itself.

“I see young families who believe they have only one option and that is to leave to find work. It is becoming commonplace for a generation to leave for every corner of the world.

“The greater tragedy is that the better education people give their own children, the more certain they are to leave. We need to turn it around, we need to create opportunities for them . . .”

For a man like Cunningham, with degrees in maths and physics, global patents on a wide range of products and two major business deals under his belt that most people can only dream about, the world is an oyster.

While others might have decided to retire after his last business coup – General Electric, one of America’s largest organisations acquired his Lisburn-based company, Kelman, in 2008 for an undisclosed sum – Cunningham decided to start all over again.

He immediately set up Kelvatec, which designs, manufactures and supplies products and services to the energy and rail industries. Today, the company employs more than 150 at its headquarters, also in Lisburn, and is growing a network of sales and engineering bases across Europe and the US.

Yesterday, it announced a new Invest NI-backed £3.5 million investment expected to create a further 60 jobs.

Cunningham is very clear about why he works as hard today as he did when he started 40 years ago.

“I have very strong views about the future – about what we should be doing. I have two sons and five grandchildren and that is what drives me today, to grow the business for them so that they have a choice, so that they can stay here and work here in Northern Ireland if they want to. They can leave if they want, but they will not be forced to leave like so many are today.”

Both his sons work with him in Kelvatec. He despairs at the lack of a strategy for job seekers. There are jobs in Northern Ireland, he notes, but not people with the right qualifications.

“We are looking for 50 design engineers for a project we have at the moment. If we were looking for lawyers or doctors, it would be no problem, but engineers are a big problem. We cannot find the quality or the quantity of engineers that we need. That’s why we’ve opened design offices in locations like Poland, Italy and Denmark, because we can find design engineers there.

“The lack of engineers in Northern Ireland is not just a problem for our business, it is a problem for lots of companies and it is a problem right across Ireland from what I gather.”

Cunningham believes there needs to be a concentrated effort to build a resilient manufacturing foundation and to move away from a “culture of dependency on Westminster” .

“We have two more projects coming in behind that will require more new products, more new design. We are creating high-added-value jobs in Northern Ireland. We want to create more. All of our future expansion in facilities and people will be in Northern Ireland – if, of course, we can find the people.”

He is confident that if political and business leaders drive “a thorough shake-up” there is a lot of things that can be done to create a brighter future. First, Northern Ireland “absolutely needs” to get the opportunity to set its own rate of corporation tax.

Then there needs to be a community-focused campaign to create more engineers. “We need to get political leaders, third-level institutions, schools, teachers and parents working together to create the kind of people that employers need . . . We should look at introducing special tax incentives and tax-free options for engineering students who study and work in Northern Ireland.”