Keith Laugesen drove his way into Canterbury history

Press, 9 December 1976, Page 21

Keith Laugesen drove his way into Canterbury history

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KEN COATES

A_man who left school at 15, worked at a sawmill to augment the meagre depression-times ' family income from a West Coast farm, then founded a bus company with $450, will retire at the end of this year as head of a multi-miilion-dollar enterprise. He is Mr Keith Laugesen, managing director of Midland Coachlines and associated companies, of Christchurch. With his father, Louis Laugesen, Keith took over a two-bus service from Methven to Christchurch in 1929. Today, Midland is a nation-wide organisation embracing bus services, rental cars, scenic tours, a travel agency, package tours, coachbuilding and panelworks, and freight delivery.

The Midland story had its beginnings when Laugesen senior ran one of the first service car services in the country. The early petrol-driven vehicles lurched and bumped their way along rutted tracks from Parnassus to Kaikoura, carrying mail and passengers after horse-drawn coaches had ceased operating. About 1918, Louis Laugesen left North Canterbury to try his hand at farming on the West Coast, at Kapitea, between Greymouth and Hokitika. Life was tough trying to carve out a living for a family. Keith Laugesen recalls how he and his father rose at 4.30 a.m. to milk cows before starting work at a sawmill situated on their property.

“If we got $2 for a wearer calf, we Would consider we were doing pretty well. The first year we had wool to sell the price was only 6d a lb. My father said at that price he would hang on to it. We sold the next year, four whole bales, for a 50 per cent increase — at Sd a lb.” The Laugesen family

gave up the unequal struggle and moved back to Canterbury. With the experience of the North Canterbury service cars behind him, Louis Laugesen and his son took over a Darfield-Christchurch service — one of three in the district.

The other operators ran a bus from Coalgate to Christchurch, and a service from Springfield. The railways Department, keenly aware of the competition for passengers this offered, bought out all three. It was a condition of the deal, insisted upon by Mr Laugesen senior, that the Railways provide a job for Keith. “As a result I drove for the Railways for about a year,” he recalls. Then came the purchase of the MethvenChristchurch service and the establishment of Methven Motorways. “The Railways was losing so much on its acquired midCanterbury bus routes that they were offered back to us. We accepted, and bought three new G. M. C. buses.” But for years a 1929 Minerva, with doors along the side and bench seats running the full width of the vehicle, plied the Methven route. It had a 120 h.p. motor and could reach 50 milesvan hour — between stretches of corrugations and pot-holes, that is. “Tyres were a major problem,” Keith Laugesen remembers. “They were made for much smoother roads than we drove on, and lasted only about 4000 miles. They were odd sizes and difficult to obtain. Often they would blow out.” These were times when rail travel was in its heyday. Roads were rough and ill-formed. Few people seriously considered making a long journey by bus. “Not many people realise just how bad the roads in

Canterbury were.” 1 remember setting off from Christchurch on my motor-bike for Ashburton. Near Roileston, I came across tussock and gorse in the middle of the road. “If you were going to Ashburton, you went by train.”

Completion of the Rakaia road bridge was “a godsend," because it meant an end to restrict tions on the width of buses. Steady expansion became the pattern as Midland Motorways, established in 1931, took over a number of bus services operating in Canterbury. Keith Laugesen rationalises this by saying it was

essential they be amalgamated, “so as to give proper terminal facilities and aid standardisation cl' bus fleets."

He has always pinned great faith in buses providing “the cheapest way to travel.” And he says, they provided a muchneeded service, especially in days when many people could not afford to buy a car. During the Second World War, when new cars were as scarce as petrol, and hundreds of vehicles were commandeered for the armed services, the demand for Midland’s services increased.

“We ran essential services to Harewood training camp and to the freezing works,” Keith Laugesen says. More buses were urgently needed, but it was wartime, and importing new vehicles was out of the question. A search throughout the country brought to light several truck chassis, mostly Bedfords, which were lengthened an extra four feet in Christchurch, and used as the basis for buses.

Soon after the war ended, Midland began building bus bodies. This has developed into a highly specialised bodybuilding department. Both the company’s coachworks and panelworks have seen centralised on a two-acre central city site. And the company has even had a request for a large refrigerated van from the Middle East. “Unfortunately, we could not handle it at the time,” says Mr Laugesen. Next year, the coachworks will build 20 more new buses. Early bodies were constructed of Southland beech and aluminium sheathing. Now, a

new luxury tour coach, which costs $60,000, is allaluminium.

Keith Laugesen’s faith in buses extended to tourists, firstly in 1959 when the company ran its first tour. In the 19505, providing for tourists had its problems, accentuated by the number of disastrous hotel fires at a number of resorts.

Today tourism is a big business for the company which handles about 50,000 tourists, mostly Australians, a year. This excludes group charters. Pioneer Midland, Ltd, is an associate company which has links with An-sett-Pioneer in Australia. Midland has 100 buses — 60 based in Christchurch and 40 in Auckland. In 1969, Keith Laugesen’s eye to the future guided the acquiring of Edwards Motors, Ltd, renamed Midland Edwards Coachlines, Ltd, Auckland. Today, the Midland group has 80 buses continuously on tour, many on Pioneer-Midland tours, and others on charter to major tourist companies. A feature of Midland’s

service in the South Island has been its daily Starliner service from Christchurch to Dunedin, in the evening. This began in 1952 after a two-year legal battle to obtain a licence. Hearings were held in Timaru, Oamaru, and Dunedin, as to the need for the service. At the time, there was only an 8.30 a.m. rail service to Dunedin, “Once we put buses on, the Railways really got moving and stepped up its service,” Mr Laugesen recalls. The initial Starliner service took seven and a half hours, with an arrival time in Dunedin at 1.30 a.m. Today the arrival time is 11,30 p.m. In the same year, Midland entered the rental car business. Keith Laugesen puts this decision down to common sense — people were able to buy more cars, and there was' a growing demand for rentals, particularly from the developing tourist trade. Now, Tasman is New Zea-land-wide, with rental cars available from every airport.

Keith Laugesen says one of his satisfactions has been to watch an industry concerned with serving people grow. “Much of our business involves people on holiday, and we have a wonderful country which it is a pleasure to show them.”

In almost 50 years, the company has grown from a small family business to a public company of 1200 shareholders and a paid-up capital of more than S2M. Assets are worth nearly $B|M, and revenue last year was almost S7M.

What are the secrets of Keith Laugesen’s success? “I started with $450 and what I did was a calculated risk. I have had faith in the industry as a means of moving people at the lowest possible price. By taking calculated risks but not gambling I have seized opportunities for expansion.”

During the last 10 years, growth has been rapid, but Keith Laugesen proudly points out that the company he founded has been geared to cope with it. Next year, there will be 450 employees in the group throughout New Zealand.

Mr Laugesen has no quarrel with the system of transport licensing. “If the industry was opened up to all, it would have a serious effect on an operation with a high capital investment and which serves a public need.

“Sometimes we have won, and sometimes, lost. And, in retrospect, I cannot say the Railways Department has been protected any more than any other operator.” But he is adamant that today, more than ever, the licensing system stands to protect existing operations in which buildings and plant costs have climbed steeply. Perhaps Keith Laugesen, who has made a success of a private bus line, would be interested in taking over Christchurch's public bus operation? His look implies — not likely He says that if some system could be worked put whereby drivers only manned the buses during morning and late afternoon peak hours, and were able to work at other jobs in between, then it might be an economic proposition. It could suit the men, because they would earn more, and it would certainly suit the operator, because there would be better utilisation of manpower. “But it won’t happen —- not with the union attitude the way it is.” Keith Laugesen is not one of those businessmen who would stamp out unions if he had his way. On the contrary — “If you take the union away, who will be spokesman and how would you arrive

at a sensible concensus?” he asks. He is a long-time employers’ representative at national conciliation meetings to decide on the terms of the Public Transport Drivers’ Award and has found union representatives “a reasonable bunch of fellows.” And he adds: “You see, I have driven buses myself, and I know what the drivers’ problems are.” His recipe for dealing with disputes is first, to find out exactly what the problem is, and then to see if it can be met. “An operator will, of course, never be able to meet all requests, and there comes a point when he just has to make it clear that to comply would put the company out of business.” But the majority of employees were reasonable, provided they felt involved in the company’s operations. Keith Laugesen is retiring as managing director, but is not withdrawing from the business he has built over the years. He will remain as chairman of the board, and has an office, admittedly slightly off the beaten track, in the company’s Lichfield Street terminal building, but nevertheless in the nerve centre of rt'hat has formed a large slice of his life.

Left: Mr Laugesen, who has guided the development of Midland for more than 40 years, stands in front of one of the company’s latest tour coaches. Below, left to right: Three buses used in the early 1920 s on services eventually absorbed by Midland. The drivers, from left, are Messrs P. R. Grub, of Methven, “Scotty” Gould, of Kaiapoi. and W. J. Day, of Southbridge. The buses, photographed in 1924, are all four-cylinder, 15seater Republics, made in the United States. Guided by exuberant members of a touring Ashburton rughy team, a driver negotiates one of the many narrow, oneway bridges in Canterbury, in 1935. One of the buses used on the MethvenChristchurch route in the early 1930 s—a Thorneycroft.