Neumann marks 50 years’ steely resolve
NEUMANN Steel marks half a century in operation next month with the family’s second generation determined to adapt and thrive in business with new innovations.
The Neumann Group was started on the Gold Coast in 1948 by Alfred Neumann as a sand mining business before the family branched out into other areas, including civil construction, quarrying, concrete and land development.
The steel division had its origins in Nucast which was incorporated as a company on August 19, 1970. It focussed on precast concrete products before moving into reinforcing steel and changing its name to Neumann Steel in 1989.
Director Marc Neumann, whose father the late Robert Neumann was managing director of the group, started working for Neumann Steel aged 16.
“I hated school so … my father got me into the business and to be honest I liked working. I like physical activity.
“Back in those days Nucast was a very physical active place.
“You were working with a bunch of guys who were real knockabout fellows and wouldn’t let you get away with being a snobby boss’s son.”
In the 1980s the business introduced rib wire and rib mesh to the domestic market – the first company in Australia to do so.
Mr Neumann said the company grew out of demand from customers looking for supply chain solutions.
“With Nucon Concrete we had a lot of customers and they were saying, ‘Where can we get the steel from? We can’t get any steel’. We started buying more steel (to service that demand) … and our business grew from there.”
Through the course of 50 years Neumann Steel had become the largest privatelyowned concrete reinforcement manufacturer in Queensland with 220 employees (the group had 500 workers).
Its projects included the Q1 tower, Jewel resort, Gold Coast light rail stages one and two, the Toowoomba bypass and the Harwood Bridge over the Clarence River in northern NSW.
Mr Neumann said the biggest challenge was navigating the boom and bust cycles of the Gold Coast.
“That’s why a lot of businesses (fail) because they get caught in hard times and they haven’t saved nor thought about their business and they run into a trough and that’s it, they’re gone.”
He said that was why Neumann was constantly evolving its offering.
The latest product to be offered to the market was the NuPod 300 – an environmentally-friendly residential slab and footing made out of recycled plastic.
“This is a product of the future and a product that takes away material that will pollute the earth for milleniums and that is plastic,” he said.