98 | Phone: 03 983 5500 waterfordpress.co.nz Your Business, Your Industry, Your News. DO OUR READERS KNOW YOU EXIST? Scotty’s skills in demand across the region Scotty and Deborah are enthusiastic supporters of their local community, SJ Mitchell Building T T Hugh de Lacy BUILDING A seven-year stint with construction giant Fulton Hogan equipped Scotty Mitchell with such a wide range of management skills that he was able to make a notable success of his venture into business ownership with his SJ Mitchell Building company in Timaru. The company offers not only a wider range of capabilities than usual for a small building company – just two full-time employees supported by contractors with whom Scotty has had lengthy relationships – but beyond commercial and residential renovations and extensions it also performs its own earthworks and traffic management. “As a builder I benefitted hugely from my time with Fulton Hogan, involved in everything from roading and civil works to maintenance systems, bridge building and tendering processes,” Scotty says. “We started our new company in 2021, soon after leaving Fulton Hogan, and established ourselves through a wide range of maintenance work as well as alterations and additions for both commercial and residential clients. “We’ve done a lot of work for the Timaru District Council, including maintenance and specialist work jobs, installations of gates and fences, concreting and civil works. “We’ve also put up over 115 farm buildings to date, and we offer pre-purchase home inspections – I’m a fully insured inspector – with these proving particularly popular to the degree we’ve done seven in the past week.” Scotty always wanted to be a builder. He first got into it in 1991 with Colin Shaw, followed by a carpentry apprenticeship for Timaru builder Chris Broadhead in 1993. He continued working for that company until 2000 when he headed off to Australia for his OE, where he worked for the company Mr Formwork in Perth, gaining high-rise construction experience on multi-storey suspended floors in the West Australian capital. He wound that up with a 65,000km drive around Australia before returning to New Zealand to work for a couple of other builders before going out on his own in 2003, completing a major renovation for friends. That led to the formation of SJ Mitchell Building, with wife Deborah not only handling the books but also working on the tools as necessary. “Deborah’s our quality controller and she’s more than willing to get her hands dirty onsite,” Scotty says. Typical of the work SJ Mitchell Building does was an extension and restoration project on a 92sqm brick house built in the 1920s on The Terrace, an elite area of Timaru overlooking the port. The year-long job included a 65sqm extension, the gutting the old building and installation of a 150-year-old kauri floor throughout. Scotty and Deborah are enthusiastic supporters of their local community, being commercial partners in the Aoraki Corporation, which operates a range of community funding incentives throughout South Canterbury, and in the local Eco-Centre and YMCA. They are also members of the South Canterbury Mountain Bike Club, and were deeply involved in the club’s recent completion of a pump track on a 600sqm section of the scenic reserve at a cost of $250,000, all of it raised within the Timaru community in less than a year. Proud to be associated with SJ Mitchell Building
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