76 | ENGINEERING PFS Engineering T T Hugh de Lacy Firm plays vital role in local economy The main trades covered by the company’s skilled staff include commercial management, estimating, project management, project engineering, designing and detailing, structural, mechanical and piping work, along with fitting and welding. “One of our core values is to develop exceptional people within the company, and we’ve become very diverse in both our services and the industries we’re involved with....” It started out in 1997 as a small team of three - founder Graham Singleton, wife Sharon and an apprentice - as PFS Engineering, the letters standing for Pipe Fabrication Services, a name they came up with in a rush as a client could not invoice a partnership. Today the Hamilton company routinely employs up to 145 staff on design, manufacture, installation and maintenance services for the engineering industries at large. Initially working out of a shed at his home, Graham had by the turn of the millennium built the business to the point it was able to take over the plant and machinery of Rolls Royce NZ, an engineering off-shoot of the famous car company that made boilers and pressure equipment for paper mills. A year later the company acquired and moved into the Rolls Royce building, gaining a workshop facility of more than 30,000m2 and featuring two 10-tonne gantry cranes with a 50-tonne tandem lift capacity, backed by two separate 10-tonne gantry cranes. Graham, who continues to be the company’s major shareholder, had a background in the engineering industry and built a team of contractors completing construction and maintenance projects throughout the Waikato. Since then PFS Engineering has completed tasks throughout Australia and New Zealand. “More recently we’ve focused our support on our local New Zealand clients, offering highly qualified trade services,” the company’s Business Development Manager Adam Rickit says. Adam is also trade qualified and has 28 years of experience behind him in projects throughout New Zealand and around the world. “One of our core values is to develop exceptional people within the company, and we’ve become very diverse in both our services and the industries we’re involved with, which includes everything that goes up and down and round and round that needs repair or replacement,” he says. Recent major projects that PFS Engineering has completed include Auckland’s Canada Street Bridge – known as the Pink Bridge – and the Peacockes Road cycle and pedestrian bridge, known as the Rusty Bridge, in Hamilton. “At Peacockes Road we wanted to do something local as all our contracts to date had been out of town,” Adam says. The Canada Street bridge, 85m long, was built to complete a cycling and pedestrian route around Auckland city. Designed by local firm Monk MacKenzie, it was an Auckland Architectural Awards winner in 2016, and has been described as “architectural Zen next to the chaos” of the SH1 freeway at the top of Karangahape Road. The recently completed Peacockes Road bridge is a 200m span over the Waikato River that is due to be opened this month. Winning the contracts to build complex structures of this nature, no less than its core business of pipe fabrication and related services, has established PFS Engineering as a leading construction and associated service provider in the central North Island. The main trades covered by the company’s skilled staff include commercial management, estimating, project management, project engineering, designing and detailing, structural, mechanical and piping work, along with fitting and welding. The company’s reputation and work output have hardly been affected by the recent shortages of skilled staff. “PFS have retained a very highly skilled workforce throughout the recent tough labour market conditions, with ten to 12 apprentices on the staff at any one time,” Adam says. “We play a vital role in the local economy: not only are we a big employer of local people, but we consider our suppliers as our partners. “PFS are an ambitious and youthful company, and we have no desire to be the biggest: we just want to be the best,” Adam says. · · Mobile Scaffolds · Safety Nets · Shrink-wrapping 021 307 913 info@itusscaffolding.co.nz www.itusscaffolding.co.nz Scaffolding - Residential, l i i i l, Commercial & Industrial i l I i l
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