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Warwick Leach leads a busy life as a third-generation director and executive in a rock-solid rural family business and president of the Institute of Quarrying. BY GAVIN RILLEY.
Among the latter are the Leach family. For generations they have lived and prospered through hard work in the Hauraki Plains town of Paeroa (population 4000), their family business as enduring as the famous local Lemon & Paeroa soft drink. HG Leach & Sons was founded in 1952 by Harry Leach and his sons Mervyn and Bruce when they bought the Tirohia quarry. Fifty-eight years on, the family line is unbroken and the company operates four quarries and is involved in contracting, solid-waste disposal, and road and bulk cartage. Its inventory features an impressive array of heavy-duty quarrying and crushing equipment and heavy earthmoving machinery. Third-generation Leaches have a firm hand on the company tiller as directors and executives. Bruce’s son Shane is sales and transport manager, while Mervyn’s elder son Graham is plant and maintenance manager and younger son Warwick (pictured) general manager of the quarry division. Moreover, fourth-generation Leaches are already at work in the form of Graham’s three sons, and Warwick is hoping his 24-year-old son Ryan will follow suit when he tires of working in the West Australian mines. Warwick, at 52, leads a busy life as he is also halfway through a two-year term as national president of the Institute of Quarrying. He was elected to the executive in 2003 and it will be 2013 by the time he has completed his presidency and two years as immediate past president. Among the projects he is overseeing is the setting up in New Zealand of a United Kingdom-driven “speed learning by computer” course, which will result in students obtaining unit standards and gaining an internationally-accepted qualification for quarry managers. Although as a schoolboy Warwick did holiday work in the quarries, he did not join HG Leach on leaving school in 1977 but took his father’s advice to obtain a trade qualification and did a fitter-welder apprenticeship with Thames engineering firm A&G Price (which was founded in 1868 and is surely one of the oldest companies in the country). Warwick joined HG Leach in 1981 as a maintenance fitter and in 1984 became manager of its Waitawheta quarry, obtaining his B-grade then A-grade quarry manager’s tickets. In 1993 there was a restructuring of the company and he took over the role of production manager of the four quarries, which produce premium aggregates with an AA weathering index – the highest possible rating. His job description subsequently changed and he became general manager of the quarry division. Warwick acknowledges that a family-run company operates differently from a corporate and that inherited wisdom is a plus. “We work with our people and we operate all the gear – I suppose that’s an advantage in today’s business. And I would say I’ve inherited from my grandfather and father and uncle ideas that influence decisions we make today.” But the Leach hierarchy is not a closed shop. “In a family businesses it is easy to get tied up in family issues and in 1996 we decided that the company needed an ‘independent managing’ aspect. That’s when Eric Souchon joined the company.” Eric was a South African working for Manukau and Waitakere City Councils after migrating to this country with his New Zealand wife Mandy and their baby daughter. “Eric slotted in well and that gave the company direction. It meant we could carry on operating as a good family business. His joining us has definitely worked for our family,” Warwick says. And worked not only inside, but outside the company. Much as Warwick is doing now with his IoQ presidency, managing director Eric put HG Leach on the industry map at national level by being elected to the Aggregate & Quarry Association executive and eventually becoming president. His high profile helped draw attention to the sound public-relations work Leach was doing by holding quarry open days, and also its opening in 2001 of the Tirohia landfill – the first such modern facility to service the needs of communities in the eastern Waikato, western Bay of Plenty, Thames Valley and Coromandel Peninsula. If appointing an “outsider” to head HG Leach is one of the family-owned business’s strengths, another is the company’s diversification over the years. “Where we changed was we got into the waste side and that opened up so many other doors,” Warwick says. “The quarry and the landfill work in really closely. You need the quarry to open up the hill and you need the landfill to fill it back up. They work in very well together. “As far as what else is out there, we just assess different opportunities as they come through. We look at the logistics. Is it too far away from home? Can we manage it? We assess new ideas and decide whether to stick to what we do well.” Distance is no bar to Leach’s contracting team. Its projects include operating and the ongoing construction of the Naboro landfill near Suva in Fiji and carrying out the formation and lining works at the Silverstream landfill in Upper Hutt. Leach’s contracting activities have been curtailed during the recession but the consequent decline in equivalent fulltime staff from 75 to about 60 has been achieved solely through people leaving and not being replaced. As one of the biggest employers of labour in the Paeroa area, the company feels a responsibility to keep people in work, Warwick says. It’s a loyalty that works both ways: the two longest serving staffers have been with the company for 48 and 46 years, and the top 15-20 can boast a total of more than 600 years’ service. Like employers everywhere, Warwick is hoping better times are not too far away. “All the quarry people I’ve been talking to this year are saying the winter’s going to be quiet, and we’re seeing that as well. They and we are hoping for better things next year.” He says if the Government delivers on its plan to spend $4.5 billion on state highways by 2012 “that will be a real positive for our industry”. Another positive will be if the industry can convince central and local government of how necessary quarrying is in the provision of the nation’s infrastructure. It’s an area in which HG Leach and other major players have had some success with their quarry open days, but on an industry-wide level there’s still a way to go. “It’s of great importance,” says Warwick, wearing his Institute of Quarrying president’s hat, “that we continue down the path of ensuring that central and local government, developers and the public know how critical our products are for the continuing well-being of New Zealand. “How many times have we said communities need quarry products to build homes, schools, hospitals, shopping centres and roads?” Outside work and institute, Warwick is husband to Kim and father, not only to Ryan but to daughters Amanda, 26, a hairdresser at Morrinsville, and Kristy, 21, who lives in Vancouver with her Canadian partner. In his spare time he enjoys fishing, diving and gathering seafood. And somehow he’s found time to be a volunteer fireman for 33 years, first at Thames then (from 1982 when he married) at Paeroa. “I’m now not quick enough to get to the first truck on a fire call, and I end up in the second truck,” he laughs. “But I’d like to think I’ve got a few more years. Tuesday night’s our training night and I still get a buzz.”
Q&M Vol.7 No.4 August-September 2010 |
There’s a school of thought that believes that while it may be city folk who generally make media headlines with their flash, dash and cash, it’s the lower profile rural people who are the real New Zealanders and, therefore, the backbone of the country.