Business Rural North Summer 2021

| 57 Engineering with a personal approach Cameron and Rachael, with their children Alise, Lucy and Sam (top). The team on a cattlestop job (below). Russell Fredric R unning their Reporoa family business is much more than just a job for the owners of Martelli Rural Engineering. Cameron (Cam) and Rachael Martelli take a lot of pride in making a difference in their close knit com- munity, not only in the standard of work completed, but in the personal approach they provide to their clients. Completing every job to a high standard is intrinsic to who they are and how they operate, Rachael says. “We are a family with three children, 11, 8 and 6 and between my job in town and raising the kids, I take care of all the books etcetera for the company so Cam can run the workshop with ease.” “He had an interest in mechanics and engineer- ing from an early age helping his dad repair and build things on the farm. His father was a mechanic before he went farming and also his grandfather was a mechanic for his family contracting and trucking business.” Cam stepped out into business six years ago with a hankering to be his own boss with consider- able experience behind him in New Zealand and overseas. After completing his apprenticeship, he did a stint as a technician on a Sealord trawler and undertook maintenance and repairs on mulchers and Fendt tractors on a Landcorp forest-to-farm development for two of years. Overseas, he experienced agriculture in the United States as a truck driver for a Custom Harvest crew, followed by driving tractors and building new cow sheds in the United Kingdom. Cam’s rural background has given him a strong understanding of the engineering and maintenance needs in the rural sector, especially of time-critical RURAL SERVICES » Martelli Rural Engineering work, consequently he offers a 24 hours a day, seven days of week repair service. Martelli Rural Engineering repairs and services a wide variety of equipment and machinery as well as manufacturing also most anything in steel such as trailers, structural steel, wood splitters, quick hitches, pallet forks, AI platforms, roller frames for silage covers, plus custom designed items. Some projects required innovative thinking to achieve the best result. An example is creating a simple, cost effective solution to fabricate u-shaped brackets for holding dual-purpose irrigation and frost protection sprin- klers in a kiwifruit orchard. “First we made 250 of the brackets with a [verti- cal] pipe welded to them which worked well, but they were too costly to make, so we had a rethink and had 500 of them laser cut and folded in 10’s. We had them cut from stainless steel so there was also no need for painting,” Cam says. Cam’s passion for excellence means he will always manufacture a high quality product or get to the bottom of the reason why a failure or damage has happened and complete a thorough repair to eliminate future problems. One farmer had a silage wagon refurbished to near new order. “This will minimise any break downs and down- time in the future and basically restored its life for another 10 years probably. “Obviously you’ve got to do what makes eco- nomic sense; we always work to do what’s best for our customers at the end of the day.” “He had an interest in mechanics and engineering from an early age helping his dad repair and build things on the farm.” Looking for Positive Business Direction? We are a local Chartered Accountancy firm, committed to empowering businesses of any size, in any industry, to understand, effectively manage and grow their business, to achieve their business and financial goals. P 07 343 1197 E info@tnca.co.nz W www.tnca.co.nz