| 69 T T Hugh de Lacy Leaner operation increases efficiency Knight and Dickey services communities from Matamata and Morrinsville in the south to Wellsford and Hobsonville in the north. TRANSPORT Knight and Dickey A major down-sizing following the death of the second of the company’s founders has turned South Auckland trucking company Knight and Dickey into a lean machine servicing communities from Matamata and Morrinsville in the south to Wellsford and Hobsonville in the north. From livestock movements, precision fertiliser spreading and the supply of stock feeds, Knight and Dickey’s services extend to pre-cast concrete transport, tank water and goods deliveries, and heavy steel haulage. The company also operates a sand-mining operation on a 70ha block, supplying roading materials it found itself having to buy recently after the owner died. The company’s versatility has its roots in the practice of one founder, the late Graham Dickey, in gathering vast amounts of old machinery and parts at the 2ha site that once housed the Waiuku Dairy Factory, and extended to the establishment of the Waiuku Motor Museum in that town. Graham died in 2024 after six years fighting dementia, and his passing coincided with his son and grandson, John and Karl Dickey, launching a major clean-out of the site, while reducing the fleet of trucks from nearly 100 to the current 61. “Dad had accumulated a huge amount of spare parts – engines, gearboxes and just about everything else related to the business – ever since he joined Jack Knight in launching the business way back in 1958,” John says. “Dad was a great one for keeping all sorts of parts and machinery in case they served some purpose further down the track, and before he died we’d started a clean-out and also a staged down-sizing of the fleet. “In the process we shed some staff too, down from around 55 to the 28 in the company today. We took 60 tons of scrap metal out of one shed and over 150 tons from the whole site.” The aim was to thin the operation down to achieve greater efficiencies, and also reduce the complexity of operating so large a fleet while retaining its versatility to cover the range of industries it serviced. John’s father Graham had started out mowing lawns, until one of his clients offered to put up the money for him to join Knight in the trucking business then known as Jack Knight and Co. When the pair bought out an existing company, W J Short Cartage Contractors in 1962, they changed their company’s name to Knight and Dickey, and Graham kept the name after he bought Jack out in 1983. John joined the company at 21, running the workshop while his father oversaw operations from an office that overlooked the entrance way “so he could keep an eye on everything coming in and going out,” John says. Later, John’s son Karl joined the company on the administrative side, and today runs it from the office his grandfather used, while John keeps an overall eye on things, and wife Denise works in the office. AGRICULTURAL LIME AND LIME ROCK For ground and air application, crushed race rock available both 100mm and 50mm grade. 179 Sandspit Road,WARKWORTH Phone 09 425 8531 www.rodneylime.co.nz “Dad was a great one for keeping all sorts of parts and machinery.....”
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