COVER STORY
LOCAL
HERO TRAVEL THROUGH THE ILLAWARRA DISTRICT IN NEW SOUTH WALES AND YOU ARE LIKELY TO ENCOUNTER CLEARY BROS’ BRIGHT YELLOW TRUCKS OR THEIR EARTHMOVING EQUIPMENT. SINCE IT WAS ESTABLISHED MORE THAN A CENTURY AGO, CLEARY BROS HAS BECOME SYNONYMOUS WITH THE REGION.
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n 1916, three Cleary brothers started a business, with John Joseph ‘Jack’ Cleary leading the way. His leadership transformed Cleary Bros from an operation that transported timber to diversify into a much broader service provider for the then expanding construction industry. Following Jack’s passing in 1958, his four children – John, Jill, Denis and Brian – assumed management responsibilities. To this day the business is overseen by Denis Cleary in his role as Chairman. Steve Rogers joined Cleary Bros four years ago as its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer; he is poised to face the challenges of the business’ second century, bringing a wealth of experience in Australian construction materials. As a business, Cleary Bros has always been prepared to accept the difficult jobs and has earned a reputation for taking on extremely challenging projects, as well as the more straightforward tasks, and successfully fulfilling their roles to completion. The Cleary Bros Construction Division provides a broad range of civil services including large earthworks, residential and industrial subdivisions, roadworks and remediation works and is able to implement the use of company-owned equipment to perform most of the necessary tasks. 26
a u g u st 2019
The diversity of the sectors of the business has been a factor in the formula for the ongoing success of Cleary Bros and the concrete, transport, quarrying and construction sectors work well together and contribute to the overall competitiveness of the group’s business offering. Cleary Bros’ Concrete Division has a fleet of thirty agitators as well as five cement
Mack, the latest being 535 horsepower Mack Trident tippers attached to four axle tipping trailers operating at 57.5 tonnes Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM) under the Performance-Based Standards (PBS) system. Other towed equipment includes side tippers, conventional tippers and two 26-metre B-double combinations mostly used in transporting fly ash.
“If you’re running trucks for a set short period and then replacing them in your fleet you could run a less recognised oil but for longevity we need to do regular maintenance and run a good quality oil like Valvoline.” Steve Crandell General Manager for Concrete and Transport at Cleary Bros
powder tankers. The traditional 6x2 agitator trucks are progressively being replaced with 10x4 units which have the capacity to deliver eight cubic metres of ready-mixed concrete in each load. There are around 30 road going combinations which are mainly tippers as well as three low loader floats to move the pieces of earthmoving machinery and which are also available for hire to relocate third party machines and components. The most recent acquisitions for the road going truck fleet are predominantly
Cleary Bros’ long association with the Mack brand is evidenced by the superbly restored pair of 1940’s NR Mack trucks on display in the Cleary Bros museum alongside bulldozers and other earthmoving equipment, all of which have been restored to ‘as new’ condition. The restorations have been performed by Cleary Bros employees and are a genuine showcase of their abilities. Cleary Bros are a major supplier of construction materials and hard rock in both boulder and crushed forms is
