Sven Carlsson

ABOUT 60 people attended the launch of Richard Claydon’s History of Waiotahi Contractors last week.

The launch was held at the Commercial Hotel in Whakatāne on Friday afternoon.

Consisting of 310 pages in A4 format with plenty of colour photos, the book tells the story of a high-profile company that has employed many hundreds of people over the years – the book also acts as a time capsule of New Zealand and Eastern Bay history.

As Richard Claydon returns to Godzone in 1961 following his OE, we journey with him back in time: the Waiotahi Dragline Company had been formed in July 1957 because Claydon’s three uncles, the Bennett brothers, desperately needed to have their low-lying Waiotahi farm drained.

When Ōpōtiki’s only dragline was too busy to attend, they took matters into their own hands and purchased a machine, setting up a company with skilled dragline operator Len Gordon.

As it happened, they needed another person on dragline duties when Claydon came back to Ōpōtiki – and his main requirement in the work department was it shouldn’t involve being stuck inside in a bank, which he had experienced. He had, however, enjoyed engineering work.

There was thus a match made in Waiotahi.

Within the first few years, Claydon’s role in the company expanded into leadership.

The expansion of work duties and the operational area is described as a first-person story in his book and it’s a great example of how a company thrives inside a set of forever-changing circumstances.

Company acquisitions, new technologies, the establishment of depots in both Whakatāne and Ōpōtiki and the hiring of key staff are all part of the development.

Ōpōtiki’s Robbie Petersen, who has contributed to the foreword, is such a person.

He was to become Waiotahi Contractor’s Ōpōtiki boss and his son, Spike, is now the company managing director.

Claydon’s sons also hold key roles in the company.

It’s a bit like a dynasty in the making, and it all happened “by chance”, but not really.

In the book, Claydon describes how he was operating a dragline on a job when he noticed a driver who consistently parked his truck in the perfect spot for him to dump the material into.

That driver was Petersen – and it wasn’t long before he was offered a role in the company.

Petersen gracefully accepted, promising he would work hard.

“Sixty years is a long time, and we’ve had our ups and downs, but we always came out on the right side – thanks Richard for the ride, Robbie,” Petersen writes in the foreword.

Richard Claydon's History of Waiotahi Contractors was printed by Mann Print.

■ Anyone interest in purchasing copy can email Sven Carlsson at [email protected]