Alan Titchall, Editorial Manager. Contrafed Publishing.
I have $1000 to give away to a deserving young/new staff member who might be on your team and who could be recognised as a ‘Tomorrow’s Leader’.
If you know of such a promising person, call me direct (027 405 0338) and I will arrange to profile them in the June-July QuarryNZ Conference issue of this magazine.
I present the award at the conference award night (Friday, July 11) so it is preferable they can make it to this event to be recognised in front of their peers.
In the April 2025 issue of Q&M the content is an eclectic mix, which I think you will enjoy. In our IOQ Veteran series we profile Brian Bouzaid, an industry stalwart who I have always found very accommodating and pleasant to deal with, and who I first met when he hosted me on a site visit to Kiwi Point Quarry. His career has been long and varied and his profile makes for interesting reading.
On a sadder note, we have two veteran obituaries: one of whom we profiled in our Veteran series last year – Ian Rodger, who passed away back in February. As with many of you readers, I only caught up with Ian at QuarryNZ conferences, and I thoroughly enjoyed his company and industry war stories.
Those veterans, like Ian, who were directly involved in the development of the innovative Barmac crushing system are slowly leaving us. And isn’t it interesting that another unique crushing system is emerging from within our industry – the innovative Japanese Kayasand specialised crusher and air screen technology developed by KEMCO in Japan and already used in over 300 plants across the world and covered in our December 2024 issue.
The Japanese-Kiwi connection is through an Englishman called Andi Lusty who is the founder and director of Kayasand. Andy moved here from the UK 44 years ago and got a job with industry icon, Paul Tidmarsh, in Matamata, who was manufacturing and selling Barmacs. Andi began a 30-year association with Barmac and the tertiary crushing sector of the industry after becoming MD of the Tidco Group in 1987. He held that role until he resigned in 2006.
So, there you go. As my Nan used to say, it’s a small world and even smaller in God’s Own where there is only one degree of separation between most of us.
I will leave you to get on with reading through this issue, and please contact me with anyone you think may be deserving of the magazine’s Tomorrow’s Leader award. It has been presented for a good few years now, and many of the award’s past recipients have gone on to become quarry managers.
I think it is so important to recognise those who will lead the industry into the future, as we do for those who have paved the way thus far.
As for the title of this editorial: Samuel Butler was an English novelist (1835-1902) best known for the satirical utopian novel Erewhon (‘nowhere’ spelt backwards) based on his adventure here to the South Island high country where he did a stint as a sheep farmer. One of his best quotes was, “Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mould and chisel and complete a character.” Nice.
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