All the signs of success
A GEELONG family business is targeting growth interstate after its coup in winning a major maintenance contract at Sydney Airport.
Hanlon Industries was one of three contractors to win a tender to do Sydney Airport maintenance for the next five years.
Teresa Hanlon said the Coriobased company had also built and installed most of the external and internal digital billboards at the airport for one of Australia’s leading outdoor advertising companies APN Outdoor.
Ms Hanlon, the general manager of finance, said due to the increase in NSW clients the company was rapidly outgrowing its base in the Sydney suburb of Botany where it had been operating since 2013.
“We are really proud of securing the airport maintenance contract, that’s a real coup for a Geelong company,” she said.
Growing the Sydney operation is now a strategic priority for the diversified Geelong business which supplies steel fabrication, mechanical manufacturing, maintenance, labour hire, engineering and commercial building services to an array of prominent clients.
Hanlon Industries has built the capacity to provide an end-to-end solution in billboard advertising involving design, construction and installation of the billboard structures.
The billboards across the Tullamarine Freeway and at the Sydney Airport were made in Corio, transported and put in place by Hanlon Industries.
The company’s association with APN started with the manufacture and installation of the LED sign on Melbourne’s Young and Jackson Hotel in Flinders St in 2009.
Ms Hanlon said the company, initially contracted to manufacture the steel structure, stepped into project manage the whole job when the task proved too challenging for the builder.
“From completing that job so successfully for APN, we ended up working directly with them. It’s been a great relationship,” she said.
While it has a raft of major clients across NSW and Victoria, about a third of its business is with Incitec Pivot to which it supplies a daily maintenance crew and shutdown maintenance operations.
Ms Hanlon said her husband Paul, the managing director, founded the business after initially doing maintenance for the premerged Incitec in 2000.
“It’s grown from just Paul and a toolbox,” she said.
Their children, Hugh, Tom, and Elly, now have senior positions in the company as the respective managers of NSW operations, Victorian operations and HR and OH & S.
In December 2016, Hanlon Industries moved from Thompson Rd in North Geelong to a headquarters about four times the size in the Heales Rd industrial estate.
The $4.5 million investment has supported a rapid phase of growth for the 18-year-old business with turnover up about 30 per cent in 18 months.
“It certainly enabled us to take on a lot more work and provide a lot more employment to people in our region. It has also had a huge positive flow-on effect for many of our suppliers,” Ms Hanlon said.
Current projects include a contract with Adshel, involving installation and engineering services of Adshel’s own 300 digital and static billboards to the Melbourne Metro rail system.
Ms Hanlon said there had been a focus of reinvesting in the company and building and maintaining accredited standards to ensure the highest standards in quality, processes and safety.
“Gaining our ISO9001, AS4801, CM3 and commercial builders’ licence has differentiated us from the rest, we are not just a steel fabricator,” she said. “We have our accreditations, we can go and work for blue-chip clients including government and tick all the boxes.”
In addition to employing about 100 people, she said Hanlon Industries was proudly a Geelong company that supported the community.
She said last year the company was nominated by Give Where You Live, which it had supported for many years, for a national workplace giving award and was proud to receive an honourable mention up against some major national organisations. They also support the Barwon Health Foundation and Gen U.
“I like to think how we are as a family is how we run our business. We strive to look after our people, clients, suppliers and community.”