42 | Larsen Sawmilling REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT T T Hugh de Lacy Diversified business one of a kind The company mills timber and runs Gisborne’s only timber treatment plant. Proud Suppliers Of Larsen Sawmilling! Supporting The Gisborne Community and Surrounding Areas. For "Everything On The Fence, Except Wood". WWW.BSNFITTINGS.CO.NZ 0800 276 348 DESIGNED FOR TOMORROW - DELIVERED TODAY. John Larsen scraped together the means to buy logging machinery by hard rural labour, and then went on to establish his highly diversified Larsen Sawmilling business at Makaraka, Gisborne. John completed an agricultural degree at Massey University in 1972, then did a couple of years of soil conservation for the Poverty Bay Catchment Board, but was keen to start his own business, and the expanding Gisborne forestry industry seemed to offer the opportunity. His first piece of plant was a post-peeler powered by an International wheel tractor, and he soon added an old bulldozer and an ancient International cab-over truck, plus a bright yellow McConnell hay-loader, and he was in business as an odd-job contractor, doing everything from carting hay to cutting scrub and peeling posts. The business grew Topsy-like: when he encountered logs too big for the post-peeler to handle, John built a small batten-saw and started making fence-battens. Today Larsen Sawmilling employs five full-time equivalent staff, and John’s slogan is “More than Just a Sawmill” - a wild understatement given the range of products and services he has on offer. The company mills timber and runs Gisborne’s only timber treatment plant, but the “more” part of the slogan extends to gates and fencing materials – the largest stock of roundwoods in the district – its own branded range of “Larsawn” manufactured timber products like dog-kennels and small sheds. It stocks dog-tucker and stock feeds, and to round it all off, water tanks, culverts and firewood. In 1984 John went to the National Fielddays in Hamilton, and “fell in love” – his words – with a Coltart sawmill, built by Des Parkes Engineering, and mobile milling has been his core business ever since. In 1989, working on a sawmill, he looked into an old timberyard that had recently gone into receivership. Borrowing every cent to buy it with lawyers’ money at 24%, John was in business. He looks back on a half-decade of significant achievement in rural business, motivated by a woman, way back, who didn’t think very much of him. “She was a person in a position of authority and power in a national organisation, and she said about me: ‘I’ll give that bugger six months and it’ll all be over’,” John says. “Fencing is a major part of the business these days, and we’re expecting a surge in demand to rebuild fences destroyed by the cyclone.” “I think about what she said every night before I go to sleep, and I measure my day’s performance against it,” John says 50 years later. Larsen Sawmilling escaped the ravages of Cyclone Gabrielle unscathed, and John has yet to see any impact of the disaster on his business. “Fencing is a major part of the business these days, and we’re expecting a surge in demand to rebuild fences destroyed by the cyclone. “It hasn’t happened yet, but we’re ready with the stock on-hand. “The ground will have to dry out before farmers and contractors can make a start on repairs, but right now” (early September) “it’s just too wet to get gear onto the farms, and farmers are still busy with seasonal jobs like lambing and docking.” John Larsen
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