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Most people in Sheffield have no idea of what Olmec Advanced Materials do.

Yet their products have graced the television and been seen by millions of people. Supplying lighting for artists including Kylie, Coldplay, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Chris Rea, Franz Ferdinand. Their specialist lighting is used in set creation for Wallace & Gromit films and Doctor Who. Surelight lighting is used in the concept cars from Jaguar and Renault. The Surelight LED range of lighting is used everywhere from bars such as Studio 557 on Ecclesall Rd, the Retailer Eton and Age UK in Sheffield, Hospices in Rotherham to luxury apartments in Chelsea and external street lighting in Oxford St in London. Every year paper thin lighting panels are used on racing cars to highlight the cars during night racing events including the Le Mans 24 Hour race, with clients including Peugeot, Lotus and Aston Martin. Surelight’s products are used in TV production and adverts for the Big Brother, Toyota, and self promo Channel 4 adverts. LED’s are installed in golf clubs, hotels, restaurants, factories, warehouses, holiday resorts, offices and residential properties up throughout the UK.

Olmec are based in Millhouses in Sheffield, and Olmec Advanced Materials Ltd has been offering specialist lighting products for just under 15 years “it’s up to us to promote the company and its products to Sheffield and the surrounding areas so we all can benefit from the advantageous technology we have to offer” says Paul Lancaster

Olmec was set up in 1990 by Paul who remained in Sheffield  after finishing his University education in the city, like so many ex students he loved the city so much he settled down here. After a few roles which included teaching (Science) and as technical representative for Dyson’s for a number of years. Paul used this expertise to found Olmec Advanced Materials Ltd, for the supply of graphite to industry for Aerospace Semiconductor applications with its head office here in Sheffield and now a machining workshop in Garstang, Lancashire.

In 1999 Paul realised an opportunity to enter the world of lighting via a new technology called electroluminescent (EL), putting it simply wire and paper which glow, as the business expanded the brand Surelight was founded. Now that new LED lighting technologies have developed and as Olmec strive to stay in the forefront of the industry they offer, under the Surelight brand, a full range of LED lighting in addition to their EL products. “LED technology will reduce both energy bills and maintenance costs and reduce carbon emissions whilst atthe same time saving money; everyone is winning (energy companies excepted)”

Paul believes that in the next few years LED lighting will have replaced the majority of other light sources, and he hopes he can start to make a difference sooner in Sheffield by showing the way forward with lighting.

“ My goal is to help Sheffield use dramatically lower quantities of energy for lighting. Most businesses and properties are wasting vast amounts of energy in the choice of the lights they use and more importantly in the current climate wasting money. It is Olmec’s aim to try and educate people on the benefits that LED’s offer simply by changing your lighting. Let’s try and make Sheffield the greenest city in the nation and start making the changes today.”