12 | Gisborne manufacturer at the cutting edge Pultron Compsites founder Peter Holdsworth Hawke’s Bay: Pultron Composites T T Hugh de Lacy REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT The way the world builds concrete structures is being transformed by Gisborne company Pultron Composites whose fibre-glass reinforcing bars are being manufactured in vast off-shore factories to meet an eager global command. Back home, Pultron Composites’ 120 staff are flat out manufacturing everything from fence-posts to trampoline and snow-mobile parts, all designed and produced in-house and marketed throughout the country and the world, with 90% of production exported. But it’s the exponential growth of the rebar products, through joint venture companies in the United States and Saudi Arabia, that is turning reinforced concrete construction on its head. Pultron Composites has established a partnership with the giant North American Fortune 500 company Owens Corning to attack the $US270 billion rebar market there - which is growing at 5% a year - from a 110,000ft2 factory in North Carolina. The light-coloured fibreglass rebars, including bolts and tie-rods, are marketed as “Pinkbar” in North America – elsewhere as Mateenbar - where Owens Corning sells into the huge hardware-store chains Home Depot and Lowes in the United States and Canada. Pultron Composites has also joined forces with a Saudi Arabian firm, Isam Khairi Kabbani (IKK), delivering customised manufacturing equipment, technical expertise and R&D for a 90,000ft2 facility in Dammam. It all started back in 1982 when a disgruntled farmer, Peter Holdsworth, set about trying to produce a pultrusion machine to manufacture a composite electric fencepost and clip system to replace the standard postand-batten fence which were too prone to being broken or otherwise wrecked by cattle. The result was a patent for a machine that makes a cheaper, simpler and faster-to-install fencing system, and that in turn led to Peter’s establishment of Pultron Composites along with his wife, Dame Bronwen Holdsworth, who has since been knighted for her services to business and the arts. Peter is still actively involved in the company which is now run by his son, Jasper Holdsworth as CEO, and which is a supplier to blue chip companies world-wide. The company has produced no fewer than 45 world-first innovations and technologies, including patents, design registrations and trademarks, and is certain to add to this tally given that at least 10 of its staff are involved in new product research and development. One of those products is an energy-absorbing spring system for the globally marketed World’s Safest Trampoline brand, and even one to improve the performance of snowmobiles. In New Zealand Pultron Composites’ fibre-glass posts are becoming the standard material for marinas, and it has the market at its feet to replace some of the billions of treated wooden posts on farms and in vineyards, the latter being particularly sensitive to the environmental hazards of treated posts. Fibreglass posts offer huge advantages over traditional materials: as well as having a forever lifetime, the posts are only a seventh of the weight of wooden ones, which makes them easier to install and hugely reduces their lifetime carbon footprint, and that of the trucks delivering them. “There’s endless potential for our composite products,” Pultron’s Head of People and Culture, Anna Holdsworth says. “They offer long-term solutions, especially in reinforced concrete construction, with products that are lightweight and don’t rust. “Overall our company’s specialty is designing and post-processing round rods, bars and small-cavity pultrusions where high mechanical performance properties are required,” Anna says. “Overall our company’s specialty is designing and post-processing round rods, bars and small-cavity pultrusions where high mechanical performance properties are required.” We Repair and Service all makes of Cars, Vans, 4x4s, Forklifts and Commercial Vehicles Call us for reliable, cost-effective service & repairs 86 Kahutia Street, Gisborne - Phone 06 868 8608 BRAKES GEARBOX CLUTCHES SUSPENSION ENGINE EXHAUSTS
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