| 65 T T Virginia Wright Demand drives expansion for firm Wanaka Civil roads now stretch as far as Oamaru, as well as Queenstown, Wanaka, Cromwell, and Alexandra. Wanaka Civil CONTRACTING Proudly Supporting Wanaka Civil +64 27 839 5014 wanakeepitgreen@outlook.co.nz When he came back from working in finance in England in the middle of the Global Financial Crisis in 2009,and ended up manning the Stop-Go sign for one of his father-in-law’s roading projects, Fletcher Cranfield made the snap decision to change career paths. Two years later he had added a Diploma of Civil Engineering to his Bachelor of Commerce in preparation for entering the Civil Construction industry. He stuck out his office-based graduate job as a design engineer for 12 months designing haul roads for mining companies in Australia, but as he says ‘sitting behind a desk for 40 hours a week wasn’t my idea of fun.’ The desk was in Tauranga and it was when he went on-site as part of the design work for a road building project for Higgins Contractors in Rotorua that things came together. “I was amongst graders and diggers and rollers and trucks and I thought ‘this is a lot more fun’ so I went to Higgins and they offered me a job out of the Taupo branch as a Junior Project Manager,” says Fletcher. The Taupo move proved as much fun as he’d hoped while also giving him experience in road maintenance and subdivision development contracts. When an opportunity then came up in his father-in-law Dave Wilson’s Wanaka based ‘The Roading Company’ it was more than being part of the family that made him the right man for the job of General Manager. Within a few years Fletcher was making the call not to take on the financial risk of taking over the company when his father-in-law was ready to retire. “It was quite a big company and I had a young family to think of so he sold it to Downer and I stayed on for a year and did a handover and transition period with them,” says Fletcher. “But going from a small family business to a large 15,000 employee corporate business wasn’t my cup of tea once again, so I left there and set up Wanaka Civil.” At the end of 2020 Wanaka Civil’s first contract came about almost by accident when Fletcher asked a local who was doing a sub-division development if he could price the necessary roading job. “He said you haven’t got any staff or gear, you’ve left that game, and I said I could probably put together a team if we get the job,” remembers Fletcher. A couple of months, four staff, a grader, a roller and a water cart later Wanaka Civil started working in earnest on February 1st 2021. As they go into 2024 they’ve expanded to having a second crew for a total of six staff, two graders, four rollers and three water carts plus sundry trucks, diggers and utes. Quality lies at the heart of Wanaka Civil’s business and Fletcher knows that staff competency and capability are central to achieving that. Wanaka Civil roads now stretch as far as Oamaru, as well as Queenstown, Wanaka, Cromwell, and Alexandra. All made with a focus on quality over quantity and a determination to stay small and agile; able to respond to the demands of an increasing number of repeat customers, all wanting to ensure their roads are made well, so that everyone can be happy to go along for the ride.
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