28 | Community spirit key to safety A and R Logging harvests forests in the wider Gisborne district. A and R Logging T T Hugh de Lacy “The Madill swing-yarders are the Rolls Royce of the forestry industry, built in Canada and the United States. REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Having three of his original five crew members still with him, each now a foreman of a harvesting crew, is a vindication to Arana Kuru of his 15 years of encouraging a culture of community and loyalty among the crews of Gisborne-based A and R Logging. “They’re all local people with families and kids and mortgages, and in a business like forest harvesting that notion of community, of whanau, is vital for doing the job safely and efficiently,” Arana says. The safety aspects of logging are particularly vital in Arana’s scheme of things, because he came within a whisker of losing his life when he was whacked in the head by a log on a slid-site while working on his father’s logging crew fresh out of school in 1997. He almost expired on the spot from concussion and a burst eardrum – he was technically dead for a few minutes – and his nightmare today is for any of his staff to be injured on the job. Arana runs A and R Logging with wife Runa, harvesting forests in the wider Gisborne district, often working in conjunction with his brother Ricki’s harvesting and trucking business with its 80-odd staff. While Ricki’s investment in the forestry industry is built around his fleet of logging trucks and four harvesting crews, Arana and Runa have specialised in harvesting, and their inventory of plant extends to Madill swing-yarders for each of their three crews, comprising six or seven workers. “The Madill swing-yarders are the Rolls Royce of the forestry industry, built in Canada and the United States. “ They’re like Toyota’s Hi-Lux utes where when you go to sell them you get your money back,” Arana says. A and R Logging operates two Madill 124 models, and a Madill 171, which is both a swing-yarder and a tower hauler. Despite the challenges the economy, and the forestry market in particular, have been facing, Arana and Runa have solidified their position in the industry through the tough times, although.the knock on the head that Arana survived initially put him off logging: “I decided I didn’t want to die yet, but it prompted me to look around the world, and through a friend of my sister’s I ended up in Iceland for nine years, initially working in fish factories and, for the last four years, for a property developer,” he says. That eventually prompted him to head home in 2009, and to university where he completed a civil engineering degree at Unitech’s Albany campus. He then took up a position at Pokeno with Dines Group as project manager. He might well have stayed in the building industry had he not learned of a swing-yarder harvesting business for sale down in Tolaga Bay. “Runa and I put our pennies together and went to UDC Finance, and they were just brilliant. We struck up a really good relationship there with Steve Gittins, and got the business off on a sound foundation,” Arana says. Expert tree felling and reliable pest control ALL IN THE LAY! CENTRAL NORTH ISLAND PUMPERS Proudly Supporting A&R Logging Fully insured, certified, and equipped for jobs of any size. Phone Nick 021 639 889 wigzellcontractingltd@gmail.com STEVE GITTINGS | 027 245 9748 | udc.co.nz NZ’S ASSET FINANCE SPECIALISTS PROUD TO SUPPORT A&R LOGGING
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=