Business Profile: MSC Consulting Group
MSC Consulting executive team outside their Como Street, Takapuna headquarters. Bob McGuigan (Director), Murray Lockwood (CEO), Geoff Chilcott (Director), Paul Culley (Associate), Nelson Cull (Non-Executive Chairman), Tom Donald (Director) and Kevin Wyborn (Director). Anil Krishnan (Director) was absent.
MSC Consulting:
Building the Path to Success People, passion, performance. These three simple words provide the ethos behind one of the North Shore’s success stories, MSC Consulting Group Limited. The firm has spent over 30 years providing civil and structural engineering services to the North Shore, and further afield throughout New Zealand. The foundations of this independently and locally-owned company are firmly cast in the North Shore environs, evident not only in the buildings they have developed, but also the relationships they have built along the way. Catherine Murray visited the MSC offices in the Takapuna CBD to speak with members of the Executive Team, and find out more about this successful firm. It’s hard to imagine that the company we know today as MSC Consulting started out as a one-man band. The company now employs 49 staff - 23 professional engineers, 20 technicians and 6 administrative support persons - and has recently opened a second office in Christchurch. The Executive Team comprises: Directors Geoff Chilcott, Tom Donald, Anil Krishnan, Bob McGuigan, and Kevin Wyborn; Associate Paul Culley; Non-Executive Chairman Nelson Cull; and CEO Murray Lockwood. Bob McGuigan began working from home in 1980, before moving into an office on Lake Road, where Tom Donald joined him. As his workload increased, so did the need to source the expertise of others, and to
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THE BUSINESS CHANNEL
Issue 13 - September 2013
find premises to accommodate their growth. A defining moment in the development of the company was the Takapuna Village project that they worked on in the early 1980s, which was located on what is now the site of the Sentinel. “Part of the Village was going to be a 19 storey building, and that threw me into a bit of a spin,” says Bob. “I was too busy on other projects, and didn’t really have the expertise at the time to design a 19 storey building. But it’s always a case of never saying never. I spoke with one of my engineering school friends, John Syme, who was also too busy working on his own, and he joined me. That was how the original company McGuigan Syme started - from a job that was only ever partially built and has since been demolished!” From Lake Road the company relocated to Esmonde Road, a little house/ office that pumped out a huge volume of work and saw long time stalwarts of MSC join the staff - Geoff Chilcott current Senior Director, a young Paul Culley now a shareholder, and Mike Hope, who is still on the drawing board. It was then on to Fred Thomas Drive, where they bought commercial premises. “The offices were custom built, and something we were very proud of,” recalls Bob. “It was from those offices that we were able to let the business grow, and really take off.”