by Dr. Iain
Corness
The director of Transit Maintenance Limited is Rod
Skinner, a New Zealander who has made his own way through life.
Rod was born in Palmerston North in NZ, the eldest of
three sons to two professional nurses. He was a very average student, “I
was much more interested in mucking around mechanically than I was in
school work.” He believes that some of this interest came from his
Scottish grandfather who was involved in farm machinery.
By the time Rod was 13 he was building crude and
rudimentary go-karts, complete with lawn mower engines and wheelbarrow
wheels, but he was inventive and tried to make his go-karts quicker than
the next boy’s.
When he finished school he knew that his future
direction should be mechanical engineering so he commenced a 5 year
apprenticeship as a fitter/welder. During this time he discovered that he
had a natural flair for welding but he also began to develop an interest
in metallurgy which he read about at the local Institute of Technology.
During this period when he was receiving training in
theory, he was also teaching himself practical engineering - and what
better place than the local speedway. This was the arena (and era) for
engine swaps, stuffing flat head V8’s in old bombs and changing gear
boxes.
Practical experience and good theoretical guidelines
made a good apprentice and Rod finished his indentures top of the class.
However, after finishing his apprenticeship he moved on to experience a
bit of life outside. This he did by going into sales with a specialist
welding supply company for 3 years.
I was aware of the company, which produced an immediate
excited response from Rod Skinner, complete with arm waving and mentions
of items such as “Rockwell 62” (a hardness scale used in metals). All
these years later, and Rod still explodes with enthusiasm for his working
technologies.
During this time with the supply company he met the
owner of a fleet of concrete mixers. These were all imported and the
downtime if they broke down was horrendous - as well as the cost. After
working as a sales rep during the day, Rod would then apply his knowledge
of the welding process and metallurgy and was able to repair these
imported machines at a fraction of the cost of importing the replacement
item. This company was so impressed by his work that they promised to send
him all their business, if he would set up on his own.
So at 26 years of age he opened up Technical Welding
Services and forged ahead from there. In those days there was not as much
information on the welding processes as there is today, but it was people
like Rod Skinner who were prepared to be involved in trial and error
processes that gave the world this information to be passed on.
His hobby at that time was powerboat racing, and much
of the experimental engineering concepts went into his boats. These were
also very successful and Rod won many NZ championships in the various
powerboat classes.
He was also keeping up with world technology and in
1981 built his first hydraulic powered concrete mixer - up till then the
bowls were chain driven. This resulted in orders for 10 more, before the
first one was even completed. Business was booming, but like many small
businesses, he was to suffer from the vagaries of national economic
pressures, which at times in NZ were years of financial depression.
He weathered several storms which he puts down to the
fact that being a small company, he was able to react quickly. With this
ability to make rapid changes, this saw him going to Germany to meet with
the famous ZF Gearbox Company and import their new gearbox technology into
NZ to use on the concrete mixers there.
When NZ suffered another economic downturn it was the
ZF Asian branch in Singapore that suggested perhaps he should look at
Thailand as a marketplace for his products. This he did in 1990 and got an
order for 10 mixers straight away from one enterprise in Bangkok. Being a
small hands-on operator, rather than a businessman, Rod was happy with a
verbal order and a handshake and returned to NZ to manufacture the mixers.
He was more than half way through when he received a call from ZF
Singapore to ask if he had started the order yet. The Thai company had
gone to the wall, and his verbal contract meant nothing. “That damn near
sent me bankrupt!” said Rod.
But he survived and began a life of commuting between
NZ and Thailand, assisting some Thai companies with the maintenance on
mixers. By 1997 he was well known enough for an Australian concrete
company which was established in the Kingdom suggesting to him that if he
were to set up in business in Thailand, he would get all their work.
Again the future looked assured. It was also the right
time for Rod Skinner, “I was stale with myself and NZ. I was bored with
life and Thailand was a new challenge.” Little did he know just what a
challenge it was going to be. He got off the plane to banner headlines
announcing the collapse of the Thai baht!
But he survived again, though he admits, “I have
never worked so hard in all my life.” For Rod, success is being able to
pass on his skills to his employees, skills that would have taken a long
apprenticeship if this were in NZ. “This is a country with a rapid
learning curve,” he said, echoing his own experiences here.
Hobbies? “I haven’t got a boat here because I haven’t got the
time,” but he has his Harley Davidson motorcycle and belongs to the
Jesters Motorcycle Club, and would like to fly around the world in a
balloon. For Rod Skinner, life is what he has made of it, and he hasn’t
lost his enthusiasm for it either.
