FEATURE
Above, left: John Alexander and wife Cecile started a modest business...which John built into a nationwide transport operation based on innovation and safety Above, right: Steve Murphy grew his business to become the biggest log cartage operation in Canterbury – with a reputation for safe, efficient systems and processses, using high-quality vehicles, equipment and technology
Diverse Famers T
HE SIX NEW INDUCTEES INTO THE MOBIL 1 DELVAC New Zealand Road Transport Hall of Fame are a very diverse group of high achievers. The five men and one woman have, between them, made their marks in Canterbury log cartage, NZ’s transport engineering supplier sector, bulk grain and tanker transport, innovative trailer manufacturing, providing the transport for a couple of the Deep South’s best-known civil engineering projects…and leading a major NZ freight and logistics operation through the last two decades of last century. Steve Murphy’s road to becoming a Canterbury forest industry icon began as a driver, carting timber products for RR Price Ltd in the late 1960s. He started Steve Murphy Ltd (SML) in 1981, with a single log truck, contracted to Odlins in Christchurch. When the sawmill closed in 1984 Steve became an ownerdriver for Mainfreight – but his passion remained log cartage and an opportunity came in ’85 to get back into that with Shand’s Rd Sawmill. SML still carts most of the produce for the sawmill today. In 1993 Steve won a contract with the Canterbury Timber Products pulp mill at Sefton – and that too is work that SML continues to do today…for present owner, Rayonier Matariki Forests. SML has developed new forestry business ideas, including a “bin wood” forest waste recovery process using self-loading trucks to collect a previously under-utilised resource. In 2001, SML purchased a business carting all the woodchip from domestic manufacturers into CTP at Sefton. SML continues carting out of these sawmills under contract to New Zealand Pine Processors. In 2003 SML joined another large logtruck operator in the region, McCarthy Wilshier Transport, in establishing a management company (Canterbury Dispatch) to plan, dispatch and provide data processing of all log deliveries for Carter Holt
Harvey in Canterbury. Four years later, SML purchased McCarthy Wilshier Transport – becoming Canterbury’s largest forestry logistics business. Since then it has continued to focus on developing new information technologies. The TrakIT system was created and is used extensively by SML and its forest owner and forest management clients. The system equips logging crews and trucks with tablets to enable real-time tracking of production and work allocation. SML has a reputation for the high standard of presentation of its vehicles, plus its focus on safety systems and efficiencies – and earned recognition of that at the 2017 Canterbury Business Awards with the ACC Workplace Safety Award. Steve Murphy’s credited with a great sense of humour and ability to work with people across the board; a reputation for being firm but fair – and for sharing the success of the business with his staff through good working conditions, a stable environment and modern equipment. From humble beginnings, John Alexander built a nationwide transport operation based on innovation and safety. He started out in his hometown Putaruru driving fertiliser groundspreaders. But in 1971, at the age of 28, John and wife Cecile bought a small contracting and transport firm and started Alexander Grain – servicing Waikato maize farms with combine harvesters and a fleet of gold Kenworths. The mid-1970s saw the company win a contract to cart thousands of tonnes of grain per shipment to Mount Maunganui, running 24/seven. It led to Alexander’s invention of the “Grain Train” – a superefficient bottom-dumper unit. It helped secure a three-year contract with Northern Roller Milling. In the mid-1980s, John focused on wine cartage and won contracts with a handful of major winemakers. The company developed an intermodal service using trucks and ISO shipping Truck & Driver | 83
