A plumber for 11 years, Donald Trott was performing most of the roofing for the largest plumbing company in Rotorua when, in 1994, he accepted a sales role with Dimond “ to further develop his management and people skills.”

Four years later, after Donald and Maria’s seven-month world trip – including their marriage in Las Vegas – Donald returned to Dimond as Contract’s Manager and Maria to the Maori Land Court in her role as administrator.

Rotorua staff at the company’s Vaughan Road headquarters.

Several attempts by Dimond to persuade Donald to start his own contracting business in Rotorua eventually succeeded. In 1998 with the help already mentioned, Donald and Maria started Amalgamated roofing on 1 March 1999 from an office on the mezzanine floor of Dimond Rotorua.

They had three labour-only contractors and two roofers on wages with Donald working from 5am until 10 at night, 6 – 7 days a week. After 12 months at this pace they were struggling to keep up with the growth and size of the business.

The appointment of Jim Humphrey as Operations Manager in 2000 was a major step in the right direction.

“ One of the biggest problems we had as the business grew was with the quality of labour-only contractors as we found the skill wasn’t there”, says Donald. “So we went back to employing roofers on wages so we could train them in a tradesman-like manner. It took three years before the training paid off and things have really started to gel since then.

“ Through our absolute commitment to training, 85% of the staff on tools are NZQA qualified. We have another 6-7 trainees to sign up this year. On health and safety we are putting roofers through as much training as we can – working safely at height, SiteSafe, fall arrest courses. One of the next tasks is to get them all through NZQA 15757 which is booked in March 2006.

“ We have developed a reputation as a good employer and the grapevine is how we find the right staff. Except for one former position in the office, all the team have been acquired through word of mouth or specific targeting.”

Contract Supervisor, Rob Potts, responsible for organising the guys and the day-to-day contracts, is another example of someone with skills and experience that approached Donald and was targeted for a specific role.