116 | Buildflex finds its niche Buildflex has alot of projects on teh go at any one time. Buildflex Solutions Ltd T T Hugh de Lacy BUILDING When all hands were called to pump Hawke’s Bay dry after the catastrophic floods of Cyclone Gabrielle in early 2023, Kerikeri company Buildflex Solutions raced down from Northland to help. Normally doing earthmoving and residential construction work in the Far North with a full-time staff of seven, including on-the-tools founder Cheyne Hakaraia, Buildflex Solutions operated three six-wheeler trucks and a couple of diggers clearing the debris from flooded orchards. This mainly involved scraping up the foot or so of mud that had accumulated between rows of vines and horticultural crops, so farmers and landowners could access the affected land and resume farming. The mercy mission required cranking up the workforce to a peak of 17. This sort of work was a bit out of the usual line for Buildflex Solutions, but it reflected the versatility and flexibility that Cheyne has made the hallmark of his career. Cheyne completed his 8000-hour carpentry apprenticeship in the early 1990s, by which time he’d just about had a gutsful of building for the time being – “I’m more of an entrepreneur than a builder,” he says - so he eventually went off to Australia for four years, much of that time involved in the performing arts. Back in New Zealand Cheyne did a Certificate in Business Administration course with Te Wananga o Aotearoa, the Maori university, and went on to buy and operate a succession of businesses, including a screen-printing service and a fish and chip shop. About that time he met his wife, Analisa, who had a background in tourism and hospitality before joining the Police force. Once married, Cheyne was slowly drawn back into the construction industry, driving trucks and diggers for a Rotorua mate who had a company doing road maintenance work. Tiring of that he went back on the carpentry tools, “…initially with just an apron, a hammer and a measuring tape,” he says. He started doing the likes of decks and “rubbish jobs that other builders didn’t want to do,” before launching Buildflex Solutions in 2016, and building up an inventory of trucks, diggers, bulldozers and qualified builders. The company’s current projects include three new houses in Kaikohe for Kainga Ora (Housing NZ) and two others near Kerikeri for private clients. Other work has included building basketball courts and laying paving for the Far North District Council, and earthworks, footpaths and foundations for nationwide infrastructure company Ventia. Now a Licensed Building Practitioner (LBP), Cheyne hasn’t lost the hunger for learning that Te Wananga fostered, and, at 43, he’s lately started into structural engineering studies. “I’d like to land myself a diploma or a degree that would allow me to sign off on engineering work I’m already doing but which needs to be ticked off by a qualified engineer.” P 027 542 6966 E build exsolutions@gmail.com
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