20 | Marine specialists Wind turbine bases under construction at BEW. T T from page 18 REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Southland: Bluff Engineering and Welding Shipwright Boat Repairs fi innovations has an experienced and qualified boat building team with industry-leading expertise in restoring, repairing and modifying wooden or fibreglass commercial boats. 38 Otepuni Avenue, Invercargill | Ph 03 216 6650 www.f-i.co.nz Southland’s leading specialists in hydraulics and pneumatics jesco.co.nz AWS Legal are proud to support Bluff Engineering and Welding Chris Peddie | Partner 027 431 7819 chris.peddie@awslegal.co.nz WWW.SOUTHPORT.CO.NZ P R O U D T O S U P P O R T B L U F F E N G I N E E R I N G & W E L D I N G LOGISTIC & WAREHOUSING SOLUTIONS There has been the design and manufacture of a massive 27-metre-long by 12-metre-wide barge for Sanfords, and some major vessel refits including a big ex-Australian Navy landing craft that ended up in Queenstown. “That was a serious bit of kit owned by an Australian billionaire,’ says Andrew. “So we’ve really carried on the tradition of working in the marine environment. South Port is a big customer of ours, and we still work for all the fuel companies and we do a lot of work for Downers, including discharging bitumen from their tankers. So, we handle petrol, diesel, bitumen, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, and caustic soda. “That’s all quite specialised work involving our specially trained team members. Sanfords is another massive client because they are doing all the fish farming down here, and we also service their fishing fleet. We do a lot of work for Balance Agri-Nutrients and a company called Stolthaven that handles chemicals, and we do a lot of maintenance work for GrainCorp.” Sometimes it is a case of one thing leads to another, and BEW’s work with Brian Perry Civil on a major wharf upgrade on South Port’s fuel berth led to successfully tendering for a windfarm project, and assembling the foundation bases for turbines on a windfarm at Kaiwera Downs, between Mataura and Clinton. “We can do anything in this place I reckon, and take on jobs that no one else would look at. I’m a car mechanic, not an engineer, but I have a good problem-solving brain. “We have a different approach and I think we do things differently to most people. We look for all the reasons why something can be done, instead of why it cannot be done. “We designed and built a big walkway for Milford Sound here in this workshop. It had to be transported on a truck, fit through the Homer Tunnel, then reassembled on the other side. So, there are lots of challenging jobs that need nutting out, and have to be done in a specific order to get the right result.” BEW currently employs a team of 16, but that can fluctuate to 25 depending on what projects come through the door. There is a mix of qualified engineers — both machinists and manufacturing. There are people more specifically trained in the fluid handling, and there are three apprentice engineers. “There is a good skill base here and hopefully the apprentices can pick all of that up, we can retain them, and they become the good tradesmen that we have.” An office lady who has been in the business longer than Andrew and a manager who looks after Health & Safety along with HR complete the BEW team. “I generally work on the floor, I don’t like being in the office too much. We have a family culture. “It is an old-fashioned values kind of place. Sometimes the office lady will bring her dog in, my HR guy has his dog here. My dog comes in every now and then. It’s that kind of place — pretty low key. “We are all pretty tight knit, and respect each other very much. It’s not necessarily a hierarchy, it is more a family unit.” In 2021 a 25% shareholding in BEW was sold to the business foreman, Toree Whitehead. “I’ve been here twelve years or more. There will come a time when it will run its course and we will want to pass the place on to someone in good condition and keep it going. It’s an iconic business.”
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=