44 | ARC Removal and Demolition T T Virginia Wright From small beginnings to major player ARC Removal and Demolition’s recent success winning the Regional Award for the bottom half of the North Island for the fastest growing construction company in Deloitte’s Fast 50 2025. CONTRACTING As their name suggests ARC Removal and Demolition Ltd. started as an Asbestos Removal Contractor (ARC) late in 2019 with the original founders Cuba Te Kanawa Pakai Director, Asbestos Removal Manager, and Thomas Bishop General Manager, both in their mid-20s and determined to succeed. Starting with barely enough money to purchase the necessary vacuum and certified asbestos packaging to do the job they registered their name and went to work on their first job, a small residential job involving 60 metres of B-class cladding. Clinton Blakely, Director Safety and Systems Manager joined them soon after as the company grew, slowly to start with, as projects and finance permitted. They quickly worked out that they needed to both invest in equipment and include demolition in their core business which fit with Thomas’s background in concrete cutting and demolition just as asbestos removal fit with Cuba’s. He was one of the youngest in the country to be certified as an A-Class (asbestos with the potential to be airborne) asbestos removal supervisor, explains Thomas. “It just fell into place, and we started to fill the market which was growing at a really fast pace especially after Covid. If there was work that needed doing, we put our tender in and went for it, and every dollar we made stayed in the company.” Now government tenders are a core part of their work, and it was the first one they went for — the demolition of a couple of buildings in Lower Hutt — that gave them a turning point from which they’ve never looked back. Thomas was determined to find out from their debriefing team why their tender, which they knew was competitively priced, wasn’t successful. “I asked them to be brutally honest which made for an interesting five minutes. Basically, the price was perfect, our demolition plan was perfect, but the documentation was so bad they couldn’t award us a contract because of it,” explains Thomas. Some dedicated training ensued, especially for Thomas, Cuba and specifically Clinton, to deal with tenders from then on. They went on to win five out of the next six tenders they submitted and still have a strike rate of around 50 percent. Today ARC Removal and Demolition complete works right across the country including multiple government contracts such as one they’ve just finished, ensuring the safe and efficient removal of 64 houses to make way for the realignment of the highway around Levin. Once all the asbestos was safely removed, given that waste diversion is a key focus for ARC, they first relocated those houses they could (nearly half), then salvaged materials from aluminium joinery to concrete (crushed for recycling) and native timber to successfully keep over 90% of the waste generated by the project out of landfill. What began seven years ago as an asbestos removal company with two men in their mid20s quickly became three young men with complementary skill sets on a mission to put their all into building a successful company within 10 years. ARC Removal and Demolition’s recent success winning the Regional Award for the bottom half of the North Island for the fastest growing construction company in Deloitte’s Fast 50 2025, and the Regional Award for the fastest growing Maori company, is testament to their dedication. The Deloitte’s list has always interested Thomas not least because it focuses purely on growth and percentages of growth over three years. They’ve been Runner-up Maori Business of the Year at the AMOTAI (they connect buyers to Māori and/or Pasifika owned businesses) Awards two years in a row, and now the Deloitte’s Awards recognises their hard work, pure and simple. “Even to place in the top half would be our equivalent of an Olympic medal, so to be the regional winner for two awards is a real tribute to our whole team,” says Thomas. Winning nationally is now the goal, but meanwhile Thomas is back on site in Nelson where ARC have started one of their most complex contracts to date, demolishing 15 buildings as stage one of the work on the Nelson Hospital while the hospital continues to function and, as always, knowing that the successful completion of the entire works schedule starts with them. Lucky they’ve got the skills and experience, the systems and processes, and especially the staff to get the job done on time and on budget in precisely the way they said they would.
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