HELEN Hora, company training manager for York & County Press, publisher of The York Evening Press, is among the final 11 out of more than 1,000 entrants in the National Training Awards 2002.

She will attend a regional awards ceremony for the North East at the Newcastle Gosforth Park Marriott next Tuesday to hear whether she has won a National Training award. Judges were impressed with the ambition which drove Helen, now a 46-year-old mother-of-two, to take advantage of training and education opportunities.

Her husband Robert's redundancy sparked a career in newspaper advertising sales that culminated in a new post as company training manager for York & County Press in January 2001. Helen, who commutes to York daily from her home in Billingham, Teesside, said: "My original plan, about 17 years ago, was to become a qualified manager. I have surpassed this goal and each new goal has been achieved through hard work, learning, watching, thinking and sheer determination."

Updated: 08:49 Tuesday, October 22, 2002