FLEET FOCUS
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The meteoric rise of South West Express has been recently recognised by Woolworths who named the Western Australian family-business Small Carrier of the Year in 2019. The entire fleet, at present, is in the process of being completely converted to Euro 6 engine technology with the arrival of the latest commercial vehicles from long-time partner, Scania.
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he story of Mark and Andrea Mazza, CEO and Director Secretary of Bunbury-based South West Express, has been one of ups and downs as he tells it. His career in road transport started almost by default, as a drilling rig offsider, which also required a current heavy vehicle licence. The job, however, wasn’t well paid. At the time his brother-in-law Lyndon Telini – thanks to a regular schedule of overtime – was earning a good wage. Mark, who was raising a young family, joined him at local family-owned transport company Giacci Bros as soon as a position opened up. Little did he know it was the beginning of a 36-year journey. That eventually led to some recurrent work piloting fuel tankers and tippers. He eventually made his way 28
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into the freezer game and, with it, came the purchase of his first truck, a 1983 487 Atkinson with a Cummins 350 Big Cam. The job lasted just three months before the local plant shut down. His first cheque bounced, leaving Mark with no money with which to pay for fuel and hungry mouths to feed at home. He could have been a character in a Springsteen song. Through sheer persistence circumstances would, in the grander scheme of things, turn around for Mark when he accepted a job carting raw offal from an abbatoir. “It was quite a nasty business but for all intents and purposes it pulled me out of the manure,” he recalls. “When one opportunity closes, another one opens up and you seize the opportunity and work with it. That’s very much been my story.
For the most part it’s a tough gig.” Being as that may, Mark and the respected outfit he now runs, South West Express, which is recognised as an industry leader when it comes to safety and technology, was named the 2019 Woolworths’ Small Carrier of the Year. Acknowledged for exceptional service and safety under the qualifying parameter that its operations account for less than $25 million of work with the supermarket chain, South West Express, has worked as a Woolworths carrier for nearly 20 years. In 2002, after servicing stores intermittently, the account was formalised – a major fillip for a familyowned business. When South West Express was announced as the Small Carrier of the Year at Rosehill Racecourse in Sydney last November,
