TALL TIMBER

Peter Francis Olsen is a name synonymous with New Zealand forestry. He founded one of the first private forest management companies and has made a huge contribution to the sector. Through the success of PF Olsen, the company he founded in 1970, his influence lives on to this day. This year, PF Olsen celebrates its 50-year milestone. The following is an excerpt from the book (shown here), PF Olsen The First Fifty Years, compiled by Margaret Horner and Harriet Palmer in honour of the occasion.

PETER FRANCIS OLSEN WAS BORN

in Taihape in 1930. Descended from Scandinavian stock, Peter’s father was a government worker in the social welfare department. Growing up in a white-collar family and a blue-collar town, Peter developed a strong social conscience. His outstanding empathy for others and his social values later became the backbone of his company. Peter’s sister June commented that Peter had “a great way of believing that everyone was special and everyone had a contribution to make”. “He always listened. He had a tremendous understanding of people.” She recalls their father’s insistence on being positive in the face of any challenge: “Father always said to us: ‘What do you mean you can’t do something? Just go and do it.’ For us, there was no such thing as can’t: we would always find a way.”

This philosophy, which rubbed off on Peter as a child, sparked several audacious enterprises and would cause many headaches for his forestry staff.

When he was about 16, Peter worked for a neighbour who was running a small sawmilling operation for native logs. This experience whetted his appetite for forestry work and at the age of 18 he joined the Forest Service as a junior labourer. After a period of time working on the National Forest Survey, Peter was accepted as a forestry trainee and attended Victoria University to do a BSc in botany.

There was a distinctly pioneering element about the New Zealand Forest Service at the time. Foresters were posted to remote regions in very basic conditions with minimal equipment. At a time when forestry was undergoing rapid development at nearly all levels, the young Peter Olsen with his fertile mind, innovative ideas, practical skills and innate sense of adventure found the perfect niche for himself.

After completing their science degrees, Peter and a few friends travelled to Canberra where they studied for a Diploma in Forestry

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Above: Peter Olsen at Kohatu Forest in October 1993.

Below: Olsens vs the NZ Forest Service (circa 1980s).

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at the Australian Forestry School in 1954 and 1955. In those days, there was no specialist forestry school in New Zealand so trainees were sent overseas to study. Peter was relatively young to be attending postgraduate study, but he was always ahead of the game.

Upon completing his forestry diploma and returning to New Zealand in 1955, Peter was posted to the Forest Research Institute (FRI) in Rotorua for two years. During this time he developed an abiding interest in science, particularly in genetic tree improvement. His commitment to research became an important part of the company culture and Peter’s fascination with genetic tree improvement was particularly fruitful.

After his stint at FRI, Peter was sent to Kaingaroa as a forester and rose quickly through the ranks. Even then he was recognised as one of the bright young prospects in the Forest Service.

Making his mark

In 1965, Peter Olsen travelled to the States to do a consulting job that involved assessing forest resources. While there, Peter also undertook a job for John Spencer to investigate a deal on a paper machine. Upon his return to New Zealand, Peter wrote a report for the American company on behalf of the New Zealand Forest Service. The recipients were impressed with his attention to detail and accuracy. While this result highlighted Peter’s potential and talent to the Forest Service hierarchy, it also opened his eyes to other opportunities. This experience helped to lay the foundation for what happened 10 years later when he started his own company. It gave him ideas about how he could assist his clients in their understanding of opportunities.

During the 1960s, Dothistroma began to emerge in New Zealand’s pine forests. Peter Olsen played a prominent role in an effort to overcome the disease. Dr Colin Bassett, forestry scientist at FRI who headed the Dothistroma project, said that one of Peter’s achievements was that he organised industry control operations. Colin believed that Peter Olsen’s part in the organisation of Dothistroma control was invaluable. The industry-wide programme devised at that time remains in place to this day, despite the many changes in forest ownership.

Peter’s biggest driver was his love of forestry. He recognised that planted forests were a sustainable way to generate economic wealth and create jobs. He saw New Zealand as a country that was looking to the future, where fast-growing planted forests would be used to supply wood.

Peter served on the Executive Committee of the Forest Owners Association for more than 20 years. He was described as an

1: Forest Survey Reunion. 2: Past CEO, Peter Clark, with Office Manager Pat Towersey in the 1970s. 3: Celebrating Peter Olsen’s 60th birthday with forester and shareholder, M Geenty. 4: Planning meeting in Rotorua. 5: Peter Olsen in debate in typical style with Peter Clark (circa 1999).

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excellent leader in industry development matters. The intensity of his involvement in the industry was more than notable, it was possibly unequalled. Such was the character of Peter Olsen, he thought nothing of phoning MPs, often in the middle of the night, to advocate on behalf of the industry. He was the champion of the small forester, particularly when other such champions were lacking, and always he was on the side of clear and simple solutions. Anyone who wanted an opinion could always rely on Peter. His sincerity was unquestionable, and amongst his peers, colleagues and competitors, respect for him was immense, even in those offended by his sharp tongue.

The early years

Peter Olsen’s company started in the garage of his home in 1970. The first decade saw the business grow from a tenuous operation to a successful enterprise. This success was largely due to Peter Olsen’s relationship with Caxton owner, John Spencer, and new forest planting during the 1970s and early 1980s. By the end of the 70s, the company had activities going on all over the country, plus a few international contracts thrown in. This was a period of rapid growth and constant excitement as staff made manifest Peter Olsen’s vision.

By the 1980s, the list of Olsen clients had expanded dramatically and new rows of trees were marching across hillsides around the country. As the business expanded, so too did the risks associated with it. While staff had plenty of freedom to get on and make things happen, the absence of proper systems put the company in a vulnerable position. During the 1980s, a crisis in Vanuatu pointed to an urgent need for better risk management. All this was part of

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a massive learning curve for the young, energetic company.

In October 1998 Peter Olsen died at home at the age of 68 after experiencing heart problems. It was unexpected and devastating to all of his staff when he died. Richard Quinlan recalls the shock waves that swept through the company.

“Everyone was thinking ‘whoa – what happens now?’ Luckily we had a bunch of really strong leaders coming through the ranks – people like Clarkie and Keachie. They had big shoes to fill, and they did an amazing job of stepping in.”

The new millennium

The new millennium brought in a new era of business systems for the company. Initiatives put in place during the 1990s developed into a distinctively “Olsens’ way” of operating. Under Peter Clark’s leadership,

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1: Ngongotaha office, now closed. 2: The office today. 3: Planting a memorial tree at the Rotorua Tree Trust Park, Tihiotonga in the 1990s. 4: The Consulting Team in the 1990s. 5: Senior Accounts Clerk, Karen Warburton, at the office in Ngongotaha (circa 1970s).

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the business grew, flourished and won awards. As other forestry companies underwent constant changes in ownership and structure, Olsens’ competitive advantage lay in its stability. Any doubts about the future of the company were laid to rest.

The 2010s saw the company take a prominent position within the industry. Expanding into Australia, Olsens grew from a medium enterprise into a large business. The company had the continuity and independence that other management companies don’t have. Its scale allowed it to offer the full range of forestry services from seed to market. Forty years of hard knocks had seen the company evolve from being crisis creators to leading risk managers in increasingly sensitive areas like Health & Safety and environmental compliance.

The final few years of Olsens’ first halfcentury have seen the company continue to evolve and respond to the ever-changing environment within which it operates.

The decade ended and the next one began tumultuously with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and New Zealand going into lockdown in March 2020. The forestry industry was deemed to be non-essential, meaning all forest-based operations had to stop and staff had to work from home. Thankfully the New Zealand lockdown was short-lived, and the forestry industry responded with a range of new COVID-related work practices to ensure staff and contractors were able to re-start work safely.

Past CEO, Peter Clark, sees a bright future for the company: “The ingredients for the continued growth of Olsens are all there. The company has a good platform from which to support and grow staff skills and productivity, invest in new technologies and continue to be a major player in forestry services in both New Zealand and Australia.

Current CEO, Ross Larcombe, could be considered a classic product of Peter Olsen’s ethos of spotting talent in keen young people and giving them the scope to develop their potential within the company.

Ross began work in Blenheim and his first couple of years with the company included stints at the new and rapidly expanding seed orchard as well as in the forest. He then moved to Rotorua and worked his way up to regional forest management. With a thorough grounding in all aspects of the business, Ross made a successful application for the CEO role in 2020.

Ross says that two of Peter Olsen’s qualities – his entrepreneurial energy, and his focus on staff as the most important company asset – have endured and will continue to feature under his leadership. Other pervading characteristics include the lack of corporate bureaucracy and layers of decision making.

So PF Olsen moves into the 2020s as New Zealand’s largest independent forest management company, and one of Australia’s

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significant land management companies.

The regular Zoom meetings of the recent lockdown would have been unimaginable and a far cry from the early days of Peter Olsen operating out of his garage on Goodwin Avenue, with a small handful of staff. What is apparent though, is that the underlying vision and values of Peter Olsen still make up the backbone of the company formed 50 years ago.

Celebrations are well under way to recognise PF Olsen’s Golden Anniversary and the people who have been involved in the company since its founding days. Scheduled to be held over two days in November, there will be an opportunity to look through the current premises, reconnect with friends and celebrate the launch of the book. This will be followed by a gala dinner, storytelling, live music, great food, awards and celebrations. Contact Janine Branson for further information: janine.branson@pfolsen.com NZL