Young firm enjoys stunning growth
A GEELONG consulting and construction firm which started with just one employee in 2015 now employs 60 people, with its workforce peaking at 120 in the middle of this year.
Managing director Leigh Klug said he started the business with $5000, working mainly as a project manager at Lochard Energy in Port Campbell.
Vic Tech Consulting and Construction has morphed into a full turnkey operation, steering major industrial projects from inception to completion and turning over more than $10 million a year.
Based in Corio, Vic Tech provides services from project management to full engineering and design, and trade services in fabrication, maintenance and construction.
An industrial electrician/instrument technician by trade, Mr Klug said he had worked across a variety of trades before becoming involved in managing projects for Iluka Resources about 10 years ago.
The role allowed a “unique opportunity” to examine major projects which led to the capacity to write clearer scopes of work to bridge gaps between design and implementation.
Lochard Energy engaged Vic Tech to work on its hazardous area classification and hazardous area audits, and electrical and instrumentation shutdown planning and execution.
“As it is in big industry, if people trust you and know you do a good job, they will ask you to provide additional services,” Mr Klug said.
Vic Tech quickly went from Mr Klug as a project manager into electrical engineering design and then trade support.
It did a major job for Boral, doing all the electrical instrumentation and PLC/Scada engineering at its Deer Park plant, and the electrical reticulation engineering for Murray Goulburn at Cobram.
Other clients include the Nauru Government, Incitec Pivot, Sensys Gatso Australia, Koppers Chemicals, Viva Energy, the Port of Portland and the Yallourn Power Station.
The company’s rapid rise, which has come without a loan, is attributed to a history of delivering and “clients willing to support our business and growth”.
“It’s a difficult industry,” Mr Klug said. “I just make a point of being open and honest and succeeding with the client.”
In 2017 Vic Tech was appointed the principal contractor on the $85 million Malteurop development in North Geelong.
“The Malteurop job showed the company could operate professionally and look after our people and other contractors and invest back into the community,” he said.
“It was such a high-risk job, it was very difficult, it was constructed in a very small area and all of our work risk was mainly due to lifting and working at heights.”
After managing about 230,000 man hours on the project, it was completed without any significant injury and only 11 minor incidents.
Far from being driven by business growth for its own sake, Mr Klug, who has sold down 60 per cent of the company to people within Vic Tech, looks at its success as a means to end.
He said in the past 14 months, it had given about $120,000 to community groups including River’s Gift, Lifeline, the Sexual Assault and Family Violence Centre and the Centre for Research Excellence for Safer Families which supports the local indigenous community.
“When I saw it (the business) starting to grow, I thought maybe we can be leaders in the community,” Mr Klug said.
“Myself and people within our company have worked by the philosophy of trying to give without asking for anything in return. We believe society needs to begin to change collectively if we want to see change.
“The days of profiteering by the major corporations have to end. If they don’t end, what is going to happen is that the divide of the upper class and lower class will continue to grow.”
Mr Klug’s world views and his wide and varied skills were forged through years of travel, which included living from job to job, and at times just living from a swag in the bush in his younger days.
“You get to a point where you see life for what it is, and life should be simple and our systems and structure don’t allow it,” he said.
He said history would judge modern Western culture harshly when in 200 years people looked back and saw the level of poverty, and lack of health care and basic rights.
So, rather than fill his boots with his successful business, he said he would be happy to spend more time at his home with wife Carly and children — Rory, Ashton and Ethan — and do more for the community.
“What I will probably do is get involved in these charities more,” he said. “I’d like the business to keep growing, I’ve employed professionals to continue the growth.
“Money unfortunately has the ultimate influence, and if we can keep growing the business, I can influence these charities and matters in the local community even more.”