Exporting territory innovation

Exporting territory innovation

Manufacturer-fabricator Linetec is the creation of displaced Kiwi tradesman Chris Carlson. A fitter-welder by trade, Carlson came to the Territory via Kalgoorlie where he became interested in mining maintenance and fabrication. Travelling to Darwin to get more mining experience, he went out on his own in 1998. Working as a lone operator from the back of his ute, he first concentrated on mining work and grew his business to a company with 30 staff doing fabrication on machinery and water tanks.

Carlson and his crew at Linetec had not produced a ladder anywhere as elaborate as the LT100-2 before participating in the NT Government’s trade mission at the 2005 Balikpapan Mining Expo. That’s when he was approached by Daryl Wolf of HexIndo, the Indonesian branch of earthmoving giant Hitachi. Wolf wanted a cost-effective access ladder for his biggest earthmovers with minimal moving parts. Carlson returned to Darwin and set out to fashion a prototype, adding hydraulics to lift and extend the ladder.

The result impressed the client, who immediately ordered more ladders. Carlson began producing more, setting up a dust-free factory space, aiming to make a more cost-effective product and improve upon the original. “The new model that will be out next month will feature a powerpack that’s been simplified, eliminating one mechanism and becoming manually operated for constant movement,” explains Carlson. “It eliminates problems on the hydraulic side.”

Already 48 Linetec ladder systems are in use around the region, the latest export success in the Territory’s expanding mining supply industry. Leightons has just commenced contract mining a new coal project in Indonesia and will fi t new ladders to its vehicles as soon as they come on stream. The LT100-2 is universally adaptable to suit Caterpillar, Hitachi, Komatsu, Terex, and Liebherr 100 tonne to 350 tonne hydraulic excavators as well as D9 to D11 dozers or their equivalents.

Sales of the Linetec ladder remain brisk in Indonesia, where new mining projects continue to open and accelerate with scant regard for the worldwide economic downturn. One reason is the sales for Linetec are handled in Indonesia by PT Powertrain, a joint venture started by Darwin-based Engine Engineering and its manager Chris Gahan.

Carlson continues to win new sales by promoting his company’s ladder through attendance at mining expos. At the last Balikpapan Mining Expo in 2008 they had an LT100-2 ladder on show and sold 14 of them to a variety of mining companies eager to provide drivers safe access to their machinery. “At the expo people from all the big companies took brochures and cards and came back two or three times to have a look at it,” recalls Carlson. “And once we got back to Darwin the phone calls started from PT Powertrain, our Indonesian agent, with orders coming in.”

PT Powertrain is another Darwin-based success story. Engine Engineering saw the opportunities for service and maintenance of heavy machinery in the growing Indonesian mining sector and set up PT Powertrain with an Indonesian partner. It opened an office and a workshop in Balikpapan, the regional mining centre in Kalimantan, and plans are under way for further expansion less than a year after opening.

Linetec was one of the first to sign on for the most recent Indonesian mining extravaganza, OzMine in Jakarta, organised by Austrade. Like other Territory-based mining supply businesses, Linetec has enjoyed marketing success through the NT Government-led trade delegations along with financial assistance from the Trade Support Scheme. ”They’re a big help,” explains Carlson. “If I hadn’t gone to the first mining expo, there would be no ladders to sell.”

History is their business

Forty Fine Years is the latest effort to roll from Shady Tree publishing, the business driven by the Forrests - Peter, the urbane writer-historian, Sheila, the one-time state librarian with an eye for design and editing, and son Iain, the enthusiastic young photographer. “The book is a family story that really pulls you in and everyone can really relate to it,” says Sheila. “And what’s apparent when you read it is the Pantazis family’s passion for food. So it’s only natural that we spice the book with a selection of their glorious recipes.”

Research on the book and acquisition of the photos began two years ago after the Pantazis’ son Neville came to the Forrests proposing to produce a book in homage to his parents. They planned on publishing it in 2008 - the fortieth anniversary of Parap Fine Foods. “We are equal partners with the Pantazis family in the venture,” explains Peter.

Forty Fine Years is the fourteenth book to be published under the Forrest’s Shady Tree banner, a publisher that has the distinctive ability of being able to take a project from the idea stage through to a finished product. It is a business that’s come late in life for the Forrests, who migrated to the Territory from different ends of the earth.

Peter, 67, comes from the Ilfracombe district in western Queensland near the town of Longreach. Always fascinated with history, he grew up listening to the stories his father told of the resourceful explorers and settlers who opened the area. He studied and practised law but his interest in history led to him doing heritage work to help start the Ilfracombe Machinery Museum, the milelong outdoor museum that is remembered by everyone who has ever driven through the town. That heritage work led to an approach to become honorary secretary of the National Trust of Queensland, which led to a place on the Interim Committee on the National Estate, forerunner of the Australian Heritage Commission.

But those roles brought him into conflict with the Bjelke-Petersen Government and what he saw as its disregard for Queensland’s heritage sites. So when he was invited to become secretary of the Territory National Trust he took it and moved to Darwin in 1977. In the Territory, he decided to make history his business.

At that time Sheila was in her native Scotland, her Masters Degree in History and Librarianship earning her a place at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, the world’s largest reference library. She met an Aussie who invited her to Darwin where she eventually snared a job managing the Territory’s State Reference Library. It was there she met Peter, beginning a rich personal and professional relationship.

Peter broadened the scope of the local historian by taking history to the ABC airwaves, doing regular radio segments for more than 20 years, and, along with Sheila, to the print media. For 12 years they contributed weekly historical features to the Northern Territory News.

In 2002 they were commissioned to write a coffee table history of Winton in west Queensland. The clients planned to publish the work themselves, having secured a quote from a Brisbane group. The Forrests found a printer in China offering a price and a service that was hard to refuse. “The range of quotes we received for printing in Australia was between $80 000 and $90 000. We got a quote from China for $27 000 including transport, done better and in a fraction of the time,” Peter recalls.

The result was the stunning work, Vision Splendid, written by the Forrests, designed by Sprout in Darwin, and printed by Everbest in China. It was a book that attracted the eye of the then Governor of Queensland, Quentin Bryce—now the first female Governor General of Australia. She launched the Winton book at Government House in Brisbane, expressing her desire to have a similar book written and published about the governors of Queensland for the sesquicentenary of the state in August 2009. That book is now in production at Shady Tree. “Sheila and I plan these things together,” states Peter. “We plan what the content of the book will be, how it’s to be arranged, and what the book’s going to look like. It makes all stages of the process much more effective if you have the big view of where you’re going.”

The Winton book was the first and the Pantazis book the latest, but in between were a dozen others ranging in subject matter from The True Story of Waltzing Matilda to the brilliantly illustrated Tiwi Meet the Future. The books are an enduring testament to the creative energy of the Forrests. “What we have done is demonstrate to people the many ways history can be used and seen,” says Peter. “We take history off the shelf and deliver it to ordinary people.”