20 | Celebrating 65 years in business As well as the Whangarei headquarters, Culham Engineering has workshops in Tokoroa and Kawarau, from page 18 Northland: Culham Engineering REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AVON INDUSTRIES LTD 31 Pipiwai Road, Kamo PO Box 27, Whangarei New Zealand Ph: 64 9 435 1033 Fax: 64 9 435 2565 Email: avonind@callplus.net.nz www.avonindustries.co.nz Proud to support Culham Engineering • Production Engineering • Profile Cutting • Abrasive Blasting & Painting • Hot Dip Galvanising • Innovative fume extraction torches are light, robust, andmanoeuvrable. • Removeswelding fume directly at source. • Extraction is automaticwhenwelding starts/stops andmoves as theweldermoves. • Effective high vacuumfume extractionwhich does not affect the shielding gas. • Automatic filter cleaning using compressed air, lowcost. • FumeTorches can be boommounted. Call us for a demo! Ph 09 634 1949 | www.weldingengineers.co.nz ON-TORCHWelding Fume Extraction System Presently celebrating its 65th year in business, the company was formed by Dave Culham to meet the gap in the local market created by the business boost that the former oil refinery brought in the 1 0s to an otherwise neglected part of the country. “The geography of being a Northland company has never been a limiting factor for us: it’s actually been a benefit by allowing Culham engineering to develop innovative and creative engineering to meet customer requirements,ȋ Rob says. Culham Engineering has a workforce of over 1000 contractors and employees, excluding support companies in the transport and smaller fabrication businesses. As well as the Whangarei headquarters, Culham Engineering has workshops in Tokoroa and Kawarau, and its clients include the petro-chemical, energy, pulp-and-paper, marine, maintenance, bridge construction, coatings, craneage and heavy transport industries. Rob, half-owner of the business along with a partner, started out in the company as a boilermaker welder apprentice in the early 1 0s, and worked his way up. “Our company culture has been built on trust, and a genuine desire to deliver projects openly and transparently in a collaborative environment with our clients, and on always doing what we say we’ll do. “Everybody’s going through tough times these days but with them come opportunity, and the company’s future is looking bright.ȋ He says the business is nothing without having a great sta, and that’s reȵected in the education and development opportunities the company provides. “We’re very apprentice-focussed, and over the years we’ve trained well over 00 apprentices, and have 30 to 0 of them working in the business at any one time. “We also have a lot of junior project engineers and other specialist sta we’re bringing through.ȋ (arly Contractor Ζnvolvement ((CΖ) is another vital element of the Culham Engineering success story. “We’re honest with our clients: we want them to fully understand the true costs of their project by building constructability into the design from the outset, and being able to assist the designers in looking at the best way to achieve their requirements in conjunction with the fabricator. “This helps the client better understand the fabrication techniques and costs associated with the proposed design. “And we’re very much a Northland company, proud of who we are and what we do,” Rob says.
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