Work ethic will be remembered
Well-known South Canterbury businessman and national fishing industry identity Brian Kenton has been remembered as a workaholic.
The 83-year-old died in Timaru on March 9 after a short illness.
He worked in the fishing industry for nearly 50 years, owning about 20 fishing boats, and served on the executive of the New Zealand Federation of Commercial Fishermen, including four years as president in the mid-1970s.
Kenton was part of an Otago fishing family, born in Port Chalmers and raised in Aramoana.
He arrived in Timaru in 1956 to buy a boat and built a fishing empire in the region from an initial investment of $1000, partly financed by his father.
‘‘He had fished in the family boat out of Port Chalmers and was also a qualified cabinet maker when he came to Timaru,’’ his son Gordy recalled.
Between 1968 and 1970 Kenton managed to build a 50-foot wooden trawler – the Leander – in the back yard of the family home in Timaru.
‘‘I remember the day it was launched out of Timaru in 1970,’’ his daughter, Di Kenton, said.
Kenton’s dedication to the fishing industry continued with a yearlong trip to The Netherlands in the late 1970s to oversee the construction of three 26-metre steel trawlers, two for a Timaru commercial fishing company, and one for himself.
In the mid-1980s he pursued deer farming, buying land in Timaru, building a new home, and created another operation where he imported elk from Canada.
But the fishing lure was still there and his next project was buying the Ocean Pioneer, a 33.7-metre trawler that was based out of Timaru from 1996.
In 2004 he sold his fishing company’s assets, including trawlers Ocean Pioneer and Mary Louisa and 3500 tonnes of fish quota to Talley’s Fisheries for an undisclosed price.
He owned South Canterbury companies Wallace & Cooper, Andar Engineering and Canterbury Castings for a period of time.
Gordy said his father installed a solid work ethic in the family. ‘‘He was a workaholic.’’
It was only in the last five years of his life that he slowed down, he said. ‘‘He still wanted to know what was going on.’’
Gordy remembered that everything his dad did was ‘‘think big’’.
‘‘If he was building a house, buying a tractor or a deer, then he wanted the biggest one; it was all about size and it was all about work.’’
However, it wasn’t all work, with Kenton becoming involved in speedway in the 1980s, racing an SS Holden Commodore super saloon.
He also had a love of motorcycles and old cars, while supporting St John Ambulance.
Kenton’s wife, Phim, described him as a ‘‘hard working man with a good heart’’.
He is survived by Phim, three children, 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.