June 2019

We first met Ben Addenbrooke when he was working for Ron Williams Forestry Services in Rotorua in New Zealand.

It was clear from the outset when we met Ben that we were dealing with an individual that stands out from the crowd. It is fair to say that Ben has an impressive personality that flows through his work ethic. From the outset it was clear that Ben operates on a level far above that what you can expect from a normal employee in a company.

Ben’s background

Ben was born in Kawerau, a mill town in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand.

Ben’s incredible reputation started to build when he was given the opportunity to sweep the floor at HGM Construction and got offered an apprenticeship on completion of a basic engineering and mechanical course.

In early 2013 Ben took the step that many fear and partnered up with RWFS to build the company up from 3 employees to a team of 10 engineers and mechanics, servicing the forestry, agricultural and Quarrying industry. It was during this time RWFS became the preferred supplier to Harvesting manufactures and covered the entire North Island.
It was here that Ben met with Weytze van Heerden from Southstar in the beginning of their comeback into New Zealand. Ben led the team of RWFS that fitted up the first three processors to hit the country.

Ben’s incredible support and work ethic lead to him being offered the opportunity to join the Southstar brand and he started on contract with Southstar in August 2015. At this point Southstar had seven heads in operation in NZ, all with customers that Ben had previous dealings with.

With the takeover by the Quadco group in June 2016, Southstar saw some changes and it helped Southstar to open an assembly and parts shop in Rotorua in April 2017 to service the Southern hemisphere.

Southstar grew steadily with good sales due to a reputation for service. In February 2018 the Quadco Southstar group was acquired by Komatsu Forest but remained to run under the Quadco group. There are currently over 70 processors and falling heads working in New Zealand.In February 2019 Ben left Southstar to work at DC Equipment to take on their North Island sales and technical support for the Falcon forestry Range, helping to develop the service and product support side of the company. 

MOVING ONWARDS:

As can be seen, Brand Builders like Ben are instrumental in the growth of every company the associated with.

Brand builders have pride in their reputation and it is due to this pride in their own personal reputation that they provide the service they do.

The brand they represent builds their reputation on the back of Brand Builders such as Ben and not the other way around.

The following is where it becomes interesting as Ben is asked specific questions that reveal a bit more of the personality of a Brand Builder.

There are essentially two reasons why Brand Builders leave companies – the first is they may find a better opportunity to grow their own lives and live a more rewarding life and the other as we have said so many times in the magazine, they leave due to management and not because of the brand or company itself.

Ben: “My reason for moving on from being employed by Southstar has been to better my career but more recently it has been due to the lack of support with the change of ownership.

There was management changes at the top of the company and the focus we had on the customers was shifted more to the budget. 

WORK PHILOSHOPHY

Ben has a work philosophy that is truly legend to any good leader.

Ben’s take on work: if he would not do it himself he would not expect any one else to either.

In Ben’s words: “If the floor needs sweeping pick up a broom, if there is a major repair requiring attention get in and get it done.

If my guys were going to be there all night I will be there all night with them. I believe this is how respect is gained and don’t leave it open for interpretation and that to me is how you develop a culture of workers.

To me everyone is equal and should be treated that way and given equal opportunity to grow within the company.”

 

WORK LIFE BALANCE

MLM: What do you do for work life balance? What is your favourite pass time to establish a work life balance?

Ben: This is honestly where I struggle as I have put my heart and soul into the job. This is also part of my reason for the change in my career. I needed to step back and rearrange my life to allow a better work life balance with more focus on my family as my kids are young but growing so fast. My hobbies are fishing, sailing, dirt bikes, four wheel driving and camping which I try and involve my family in, in all these activities.

MLM: What is your dreams for the future?

Ben: “Obviously, I work for financial stability for my wife and kids and also instill work ethics in my children. I plan on traveling internationally as a family as it is not something I did as a child.

MLM: What personal challenges would you want to overcome?

BEN: In all honestly this is a very personal one as I have always been big my entire life so that for me would be to loose weight and get fitter. This is definitely something I want to focus on in the future.

MLM: Who would you contribute some credit towards or thanks towards for being in your life, on your career path or people who you have learned from?

BEN: First and foremost my father as he taught me work ethic. He was always at work when I was younger but made time for me and my brothers when he was home.

The other people are all the people I have worked with over the years. I have had the opportunity to work with some extremely talented people over the years who have taught me a lot either directly or indirectly even if they didn’t know they were.

Last but definitely not least is my customers as they gave me the opportunity to work with them and allow me to learn on the job as no matter how well you know your product you never actually know everything and 99 percent of your customers do the diagnosing for you to allow you to fix the issue.

MLM: What would you want to see change in the forestry industry?

BEN: I would like to see more young people get into the industry. It’s not a pretty industry from the outside. I would like to see the media present all sides of the industry because they seem to jump on the negatives of the industry, like how dangerous it is but never how rewarding it is.

MLM: What advice would you give to your young self?

BEN: Work hard but also travel as the world is a big place and through travel in the last few years it has opened my eyes to different aspects of the industry.

MLM: What advice would you give to others who want to get into forestry?

BEN: Do it. Forestry is a very rewarding place to work and you cannot beat the smell of fresh cut timber. You use big machines all day. It’s where childhood dreams come true if you are prepared to put the effort in. –MLM–

PONSSE has always been renowned for building tough, reliable forestry machines.
This point has been proven in Australia since the introduction of the 20T Elephant King Forwarder back in 2015. Since then, a good number of Australian contractors and their operators testify that the Elephant King really does pull its weight in regards to quality, reliability, operator comfort and performance.

Fast forward from 2015 to today and there have been more than twenty PONSSE Elephant King forwarders go to work in Australia.
Quite an achievement when you consider PONSSE had never had any representation in Australia until late 2014.

In addition to the large and powerful Elephant King forwarder, there is also a slightly smaller but none less impressive Buffalo forwarder now available in Australia.

Starting inside the cabin of both machines, the layout is clean, quiet and ergonomic and provides the operator excellent visibility all around and above through the unique sloped rear screen.

There is loads of storage space and enough room to comfortably accommodate two additional riders behind the operator. This space becomes particularly useful when training new operators.

Fitted out with automatic climate control, hands free telephone, Bluetooth radio and a heated high back seat with neck and side rests, the cabin finish and comfort is
likened to the quality of a luxury car.

What they or we throw at us are sometimes the hardest things to withstand. We can deal with what nature throw at us the majority of the time, but the opinions,
arguments and feelings of resentment towards us and others are sometimes the things that break us.

We do the things that humans do –we form opinions and feelings about ourselves and others based on what we do and what we experience every single day. 

Think about when you first became a member of your crew. Think of that one person who you, in the beginning, thought that you would be great friends with but later on became resentful towards because of something he or she said or did.

 

Or the person who you once had respect for but now have less respect for because of something he or she did.
You had an experience and because of this experience your thoughts and feelings towards another is either positive or negative. Sometimes these thoughts are directed inwards towards ourselves based on how we feel we performed within the group or based on what someone said or did towards us during our day.

How many of us live our lives 

based on our own ideas of what the opinion of others are towards us?
– Do you feel that you are not as good as others based on what you think others think of you?

– Do you limit what you will be able to do in the future, based on what someone said to you days or weeks ago?

– Do you treat someone ill just
because of a specific opinion you formed about another?

You can be the toughest individual in the forest and yet be limiting yourself, the potential of your relationships towards others or your ability to maybe one day run your own business, all because of build up opinions and feelings towards others or yourself that is neither helpful nor positive.

It is no secret that the public have a very negative perception of forestry in general.
We are thought of money hungry companies who are willing to destroy nature for the sake of making money.
We who are educated on the workings of a living breathing and managed forest know the many benefits of forestry.

The other side of things are the perception of forestry being a very dangerous industry. It may be true to some degree but we all have our safety plans in place to ensure our safety.

All of the above, our knowledge and procedures does not help us in the least unless we can start to turn the perception of forestry into a positive.

Bridging this gap may be easier that what we thought.

Forestry fires are a natural occurrence for many of us. Some fires as we all know are not natural but nonetheless they still influence the lives of many who live close or in a forestry environment, whether the forest is a native, natural forest or a managed forest. Both of them pose a risk to those living close by.

You never know who may find a desire to come and work in the forestry industry due to you helping their neighbourhoods.

What if forestry management companies, when they do move crews, also assist in paying for a day’s use of a skidder to push firebreaks where it may be needed?

CONAF, a forestry division in Chile launched a program to prevent fires in these affected areas mentioned above.

This program, unique in Chile, work with funds provided by the Regional Government, to hire 3 machines to construct firebreaks in the sectors with the greatest risk of spreading fires to homes, within the 24 critical areas of the Biobío and Ñuble regions.

With the use of skidders and bulldozers, 77 kilometres of firebreaks have been constructed to prevent fires to enter the suburban areas.

The Regional Director of CONAF Biobío, Juan Carlos Hinojosa Cuneo, commented that “it is a priority for the State of Chile to
protect the people, first of all, and their assets, from forestry fires through the construction of firebreaks 4 to 6 meters wide around these areas that may be at risk of forestry fires.

Never thought of your career as actually being your business, or your life for that matter?

What do you do when you go for an interview?
You sell yourself. You talk about what benefits the company who is going to employ you will have if they hire you. You talk about your best attributes, skills etc that make you better than the others that are standing in line to be hired.

You are selling a product – you.

So stop thinking of yourself as just an employee – you are a business, a product, something of value that is being sold to the highest bidder.

So let us take this further, if you are a business and you think of yourself as a business then you are obviously in business to make a profit.
We never think about ourselves as a business or being in business to make a profit. We basically live our lives and settle for the money we get at the end of the month.

Working in the forestry industry, we will all know how difficult it is to invent something that will break the mold and set new standards for what can be achieved in the equipment we use to process and fell wood.
Ask any forestry engineer the question and they will attest to this.
So when a company releases a product that does the same as it has done before but changes the concept of how it absorbs the shocks that we put through the equipment we use, one needs to step back and give credit where the credit belong.

The engineers and development team from Indexator released a new generation of rotator that is sure to set the bar so much higher in terms of reliability of rotator units.

The new generation harvest rotators are based on a new principal especially adapted for use on applications in tough environments and demanding jobs.

“We are using a patented torque transfer solution, meaning that external forces acting on the bearings do not affect the motor inside the HX rotator. This extends the rotator’s service life significantly,” says Johnny Karlsson.

This technology has already been successfully applied to Indexator’s largest compact rotators, the XR-series, and a similar solution is now being transferred to the upcoming new generation harvest rotators.