Secret to success is “balancing speed to quality ratio”…
Ten4 Transport Engineering has a reputation for excellence in both their engineering skills and their business practises. Winners of the Westpac 2017 Business Excellence Awards and recipients of top honours in the Engineering Road Transport New Zealand Awards in 2005, company owners Paul and Vicki Christie have always invested heavily in professional development of their team.
Over their ten years of operation the couple has fostered seven apprenticeships. Two of those former apprentices are now on the management team.
Repairs & Maintenance Manager, Gareth Eady says that “as teenager I was always mucking round in the shed but I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be a mechanic or an engineer.” Engineering won out after a good mate got an engineering apprenticeship and convinced him to do a pre-trade course at the Polytech.
Almost 17 years on, he can still clearly recall his first week at Ten4 and “being blown away by all the machinery and what the guys could make with it!”
Gareth says that as an apprentice one of his biggest challenges was “balancing the speed to quality ratio.” His desire to finish a job quickly and finish for the day may well have played a part in how he came to put a truck hoist through the back window of a cab. It happened at 6pm after the boss had gone home and he had all night to stew on it before confessing the next morning. He says Paul struggled to keep a straight face as he had apparently done something similar in his early days.
Gareth qualified in 2008 and a year later headed off on his big OE. After a stint in the mines, he returned to Ten4 in 2011 and took up a management role in 2014 where he’s worked ever since managing a team of 9, including overseeing two apprentices that have since qualified but he still has “two more cooking.”
In 2017 Gareth sat his Heavy Vehicle Cer tifying License which means he can issue LT400 Repair Certifications to say a vehicle is safe and roadwor thy.
Gareth’s day is varied and in addition to managing the workflow he handles quality control, quoting, and liaises with some of their larger fleet clients.