New owner, new franchise for Lockwood homes in ChCh

Press, 4 May 1988, Page 50

New owner, new franchise for Lockwood homes in ChCh

Woodhaven Builders, Ltd, who build Lockwood homes, has a new owner. He is Mr Alan Robertson, who has worked for Lockwood for 20 years. Woodhaven Builders holds the Christchurch franchise for Lockwood. The company used to be owned by the Rotorua based Lockwood Group. For Alan Robertson and his wife Jayne, their takeover is a chance to have their own business and

stay with the company and product they enjoy.

“Lockwood is an excellent building system. It is as simple as that,” he says. Lockwood has been a leader in solid timber building for more than 35 years, and during that time has built more than 15,000 homes, with branches in Australia and several northern hemisphere countries. Many Lockwood homes have been exported.

Mr Robertson is enthusiastic about the potential in the Canterbury region. He believes Lockwood has not had its fair share of the local market in recent years because show homes have been built in the wrong places.

Before moving to Christchurch he was the Lockwood company’s national general manager, responsible for manufacturing at Rotorua with 150 staff and the 40 privately owned franchises in New Zealand. He also set up the company-owned franchises in Christchurch and Queenstown. Woodhaven’s new location in Main South Road near the Springs Road intersection is ideally situated, he says. He and the sales consultant, Mr Warren Hester, plan to increase sales through high profile marketing. Mr Hester has lived in Canterbury for a long time and has sales experience in agricultural business, two years managing

a retail shop and nine years in his own electrical business. X.......

It is the challenge of doing something bigger that has kept Alan Robertson for so long. His 20year career with Lockwood is a record of promotion and achievement.

Before resigning from the executive staff recently, he had the rare honour of being a director of the privately owned corporation. This was a reflection of the value the owners placed on him. He joined the company at the age of 18 as a draughtsman. Born and bred in Rotorua, he recalls working alongside the son of one of the Lockwood owners in the factory. At that time Lockwood was building

eight houses a week. Today the output is over 30 a week.

In his second year work dropped off and the young Alan Robertson had to take a job sweeping floors in the pressroom. Even that work ran out eventually. Using his own initiative he found things to do like cleaning spouting and gutters. That was to have been his last task before redundancy. The next day he noticed an advertisement in the newspaper for a supervisor in the Lockwood factory. Being an ambitious young man, he applied for it and got it, at the age of 21. With a staff of 50 he was in charge of the precut factory. He progressed to foreman’s assistant and then purchasing officer. When a member of the ownership family was promoted to general manager, Mr Robertson got his job as production manager. Three years later he was appointed associate director, giving him a seat at the board table.

His own theory on the success of Lockwood, apart from the value that the company places on people, is the value of investment made in showhomes, after-sales service and on-going research and development.

His most fascinating experience with the firm was a two-year period in Iraq building more than 200 Lockwood homes. At that time the company doubled its output to meet the order, staff sometimes working 12 hours a day.