The Team's Board Report - Mainfreight

13
Owens Transport New Zealand – Kevin Babbington
Well some very big changes for us
all over the last few months
especially myself. BJ is settling in
well with his new role in Australia,
as am I, charged with continuing
his outstanding effort over the last
seven years with Owens.
Also welcome back to Mitch Gregor
who has taken over as Branch
Manager for Owens Auckland. We
bid farewell to Owen Donald who
after 16 years of excellent service
to Owens Auckland has travelled
south to take over the Owens
branch in Christchurch from Adrian
Ferguson who has done a fantastic
job at bringing the branch into
regular profit.
I would firstly like to take this
opportunity to say thank you to BJ
on behalf of our entire Owens team,
for you tireless efforts, larger than
life personality and relentless
pursuit of excellence and quality
that is the Mainfreight way; we
hope we can continue to make you
proud.
many more to come. The first
tanker will be delivering LPG to the
local Christchurch market to begin
with, and we intend to grow and
prove that we are capable of
offering a consistent service.
We also see the first of our full
length trailers on the Christchurch
swap run, the ex Auckland unit will
be driven by Bernie Tautari and ex
Christchurch unit is still run by John
Kerr. Bernie and John are two of
our most experienced owner
drivers and operate this run like
clockwork.
Our Moffat (4WD fork-hoist) at
Owens Metro is fully booked to the
stage that Darren Turner is looking
to bring another on board in
Auckland. Jon Brooks at our
Christchurch Metro branch has also
put his first Moffat on the road as
well.
We have extended our Christchurch
Projects team to include Adrian
Ferguson and a second pilot
vehicle. With Adrian’s experience
and James’ passion with over
dimensional transport and the
massive rebuilding plans about to
go on in Christchurch this was the
We are pleased to announce that
we will be finishing 27% ahead of
last year’s figures before bonuses
and abnormal amounts with a profit
figure of $5,435,242 for the “O”
Team. A fantastic effort in what is
still a very tough economic climate
and still a tough year ahead of us.
Again we need a strong focus on
raising our margins and keeping
our costs low. All Owens branches
will finish ahead of their pledges
which was a mammoth effort from
all involved so thank you team.
We have some very large hairy
goals to chase this year, where no
idea will go unchecked; already
Tom Davis from Tankers has nailed
his first major goal to have a Tanker
based in the South Island and is
working on a second with hopefully
First Owens Tanker for the South Island
First Owens Full-Length Trailer for Christchurch Run