DON'T write it so that we're too good, says Rotary Engineering chairman Chia Kim Piow to this writer as the interview ends.

It's a strange request. Mr Chia's company - an engineering service provider to the oil and gas industry founded back in 1972 - is this year's winner of the Enterprise Award at the Singapore Business Awards and entitled to a pleasant place in the sun. 'We're just a very modest company,' explains Mr Chia.

That isn't just a gesture of humility. Mr Chia seems convinced that despite a $640 million order book and $510 million in revenue last year, his company remains one of the industry's smaller players, although one that chalked up a 50 per cent jump in earnings in 2007 to a record $53 million.

Despite its growth, it wasn't a desire to get big fast that prompted listing back in 1993.

'When we went public, we had $20 million in the bank. We didn't need the money,' Mr Chia says.

The greater reason was that, married with just one daughter, the old-school tycoon couldn't see any future for Rotary as a family-run business.

'I'm not being discriminating, but engineering is not the best job for a lady. In our industry, sometimes you have to be rough and you cannot expect a lady to go out and shout and scold. It's difficult and demanding, a 24/7 job,' the 59-year-old Mr Chia says. 'I was afraid that after this generation no one would continue it, so I had better get professionals to run it.'

His wife, now a director, used to do the books when the company was smaller and his brother has been with Rotary since its inception.

His daughter, who worked six years with Rotary as a mechanical engineer, recently resigned to start a wholesale bakery, serving Singapore's energy needs in a different way. 'Don't ask me why, I don't know,' Mr Chia says with a hearty chuckle, one of many that punctuate the interview.

But he is more sombre when discussing the company's chequered past. 'We began in 1972; then we were too shy to call ourselves an engineering company.'

Mr Chia prefers 'electrical and instrumental sub-sub contractor', emphasising the two 'subs'. 'When I was young I didn't know what was going on so I just took the opportunity when it came along. I joined an electrical construction company in 1969, then later I set up my own.'

The dark days of Rotary were in 1984-5, when Singapore was deep in recession. 'I was insulted by one of our clients' engineers, who said, what kind of engineering company are you, you can't even do design.'

Fired up, and with the company facing bankruptcy, it was a case of 'either we advance, or we close down'. He hired 18 design engineers from a Japanese company in even worse shape. He sold off many of the small companies that had made Rotary a hodge-podge of different businesses, slimming down to focus on design engineering and procurement. That was a major step up the value chain for a company founded by a man without any tertiary education.

That Rotary has ballooned since was due to a major client early on, who, impressed with the company's work, brought it further business, even pushing it to expand in the region. 'We didn't have to put up any business development cost, and we had to go because the contract was on my table. That was how we started in the region.'

With its reputation established, Rotary got its big break at home when it clinched in 2005 a $535 million contract to build the world's largest oil terminal for Universal Terminal on Jurong Island. That project was completed last October, ahead of schedule and within budget.

Rotary today has projects in China, Thailand and Saudi Arabia, although 80 per cent of its business is still in Singapore.

Mr Chia is chary of further expansion. 'Right now we are very busy, we are only thinking of how to finish our projects.' He admits later that the company is making small steps to take up equity stakes in petrochemical plants as well as liquefied natural gas logistics in China.

When asked why he thinks Rotary won the Enterprise Award this year, Mr Chia preferred to laud his staff instead. 'Our business is all about people. What are our assets? You cannot buy people, you have to build them and train them. We buddy them, we mentor them, and this is how we grew.'

He proudly points to the staff turnover rate - he claims an impressively specific 1.57 per cent, below the market rate. One reason, he says, is good treatment - timely and frequent bonuses, leadership from the front and not least, Rolex watches for long-serving staff.

The golden Rolex started as a joke and given the company's past travails Mr Chia probably didn't think there was a big chance of paying out.

'But finally I had to buy about 50 watches to give them.' It's quite costly, he says, the thrifty businessman in him showing for a moment, but 'worth the while', he admits. 'It's not much, right, for a guy who spends 25 years with you - that's almost his whole working life.'

For Mr Chia, his whole working life has brought Rotary to its comparatively lofty position today. That's surely something to be proud of.