42 | “This has been one of the most technically challenging projects that we have completed.” Whangarei Port job brings recognition This year its installation of a 560-tonne travel-lift runway, allowing large boats to be brought up onto the dry, made it a finalist. CONTRACTING CCNZ Awards: Bowling Infrastructure Group T T Hugh de Lacy As if Steve Bowling Contracting wasn’t diversified enough as a construction company covering everything to do with concrete, excavation, drainage, bridge-building and specialist coatings, it’s backed up by five other companies with complementary skills. And it’s lately landed prestigious recognition for a hometown project it completed for Oceania Marine at the Port of Whangarei. Steve Bowling Contracting does everything in the field of concrete construction, from retaining walls and foundations for buildings, to bridges and drainage structures. To add to its versatility, it’s one part of the Bowling Infrastructure Group of construction companies, which includes SSP Engineering, NPM Construction, NPM Remediation, GHK Piling and Pole Structures. Working in its own right, Steve Bowling Contracting has left landmarks to its professionalism all over Northland, most notably among the many bridges it has built or repaired. This year its installation of a 560-tonne travel-lift runway, allowing large boats to be brought up onto the dry, made it a finalist in Category Two (projects valued between $2m and $5m) at the 2023 CCNZ Hirepool Construction Excellence Awards in Auckland in September. The company had installed a smaller travel-lift for the same client six years earlier, and the latest was completed in tandem with Bowling Infrastructure Group company GHK Piling. The award-winning work was “one of the most technically challenging projects we have completed, though it was on the same site and under the same management team that completed the earlier one,” Steve says. Steve Bowling Contracting was founded in 1995 by Steve and wife Bev Bowling, starting out with a single truck and digger, and Steve, a tradesman carpenter, working on a range of civil packages that included concrete formwork and structures. It wasn’t long before he was able to take on his first employee, Dean Collinson who, a couple of decades later, is the general manager and a shareholder. Steve Bowling Contracting has a staff of 45 and boasts a vast array of plant, from a 75-tonne Kobelco Crane with a piling rig to a GEAX 110 drill rig, plus a fleet of trucks, excavators and support vehicles. As the company grew it created opportunities for other work streams, leading to the establishment in 2007 of the Bowling Group through an association with NPM Construction and SSP Engineering. In 2000, Steve and Bev Bowling bought GHK Piling, a company close to Steve’s heart because he had worked for it for several years in his younger days. That was the same year that Steve’s son Ben Bowling started in the company as a carpentry apprentice, and he’s since gone on to work his way up to be Construction Supervisor. Another son, Guy Bowling, works as an on-site Construction Supervisor, co-ordinating employees, plant, sub-contractors and suppliers on the large-scale projects. The senior management team is rounded out by the Group General Manager, Cameron Lornie, whose background is in civil engineering in Australia and London. Before founding Steve Bowling Contracting, Steve gained experience in heavy civil construction, piling, bridge and jetty building, and it took him to Antarctica where he refurbished McMurdo Station’s fuel tanks, and to Marsden Point where he was involved in a major upgrade of the wharves. The Bowling Infrastructure Group now boasts a staff of 170, and its strength is its ability to combine for specific projects, ensuring there are few construction tasks it can’t do, and any one company can fall back on the group to provide needed expertise. Though based in Northland, the group regularly undertakes projects on the North Shore and Auckland, and it has also completed jobs as far away as Wellington and Tonga. For all your mobile hydraulic crane requirements Northland wide 13 tonne rough terrain crane to 130 tonne all-terrain cranes available. Locally owned & operated www.atlascranes.co.nz 25 Gumdigger Place, Whangarei 0800 11 73 77 www.t8traffic.co.nz info@t8traffic.co.nz | info@t8treeservices.co.nz T8 Traffic Control are proud to support Bowling Infrastructure Group Full Traffic Management Service Special Events Arborist Tree Services
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