| 39 T T Hugh de Lacy Family business spanning the divide In 2010 the remainder of Coastal Constructors was acquired, which opened the family firm up to all civil construction work. Tru-Line Civil CIVIL ENGINEERING With three brothers and their father all involved in the business, Christchurch and Greymouth infrastructural construction company Tru-Line Civil can truly claim to have established a reputation for excellence on both sides of the Alps. The family moved to the West Coast in 1995, working for local infrastructure company Coastal Constructors, and 11 years later the three Powell brothers, Daniel, Andrew and Jamie, and their father Steve, took over the drainage division of that company, focusing solely on drainage construction. In 2010 the remainder of Coastal Constructors was acquired, which opened the family firm up to all civil construction work types. It was drawn into the Canterbury market in the wake of the 2010-2011 earthquakes and has remained there ever since. The Greymouth branch of Tru-Line Civil has a staff of 20 based at its Marsden Road premises, and has 40 more staff at the Christchurch base on Greywacke Rd, near Christchurch Airport. The company has a particular involvement in pipework, including gravity and pressure sewers, stormwater, potable water reticulation systems, water treatment systems and pump stations, as well as drainage, roading, general civil construction and cable-laying. The Powell boys came up through the Coastal Constructors system for nine years, with Daniel becoming contracts manager and Andrew a site supervisor, while Jamie put down the tools to serve as finance and administration manager. Tru-Line’s main clients are private developers, and local authorities Greymouth, Buller and Westland district councils on the Coast, and Christchurch City, Waimakariri, Selwyn and Ashburton dikstrict councils in Canterbury. “When we first took up work in Christchurch after the quakes, I tried to run the business remotely from Greymouth, but that became too difficult, so today I live in Christchurch and run the company from there,” executive director Daniel Powell says. His brother Andrew remains operations manager on the West Coast, while father Steve at 70 works part-time on the machines, of which the company has a wide-ranging inventory. This includes dump trucks, bulldozers, excavators, loaders and compacters, along with crushing and screening equipment, tractors, trucks, cranes and forklifts. “Our staff qualifications cover all the fields we work in, and include civil engineers and level three communications specialists, qualified drainlayers, plant operators, certified PE/EF and butt welders,” Daniel says. “We’ve also got staff certified for confined space and working at height, and nuclear density meter operators.” Among Tru-Line’s recent major projects was the $18 million upgrade of the Ashburton Town Centre that started in 2020 and included replacing all infrastructure services, street lighting, traffic signals and pavement construction. That was completed in 2021, and the company has lately completed Stage Six of the Ravenswood residential development at Woodend, north of Christchurch, involving 90 house lots and a large stormwater management area of wetlands and ponds. “The market has been slow but there are very good indicators that this is about to change – I’m sick of the negativity,” Daniel says. “The immediate future of the construction industry looks really good, and we’ve got some big projects to price.” We Provide concrete kerbs, channels and footpaths for: Road reconstructions • Subdivisions • Maintenance works • Driveways • Residential gardens 027 433 0531 | Office: 03 344 1597 Email: Phone 027 433 0531 | Office: 0 344 1597 | Email: info@kerbandchannel.net.nz www.kerbandchannel.net.nz Proud to support Tru-Line Civil Ltd Proudly supplying our hydraulic expertise to Tru-Line Civil Ltd
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