6 minute read
MEET THE BOSS
MEET THE BOSS: DYLAN HOFFMANN
DIRECTOR, BRYDAW CIVIL
As a former commercial cray fisherman operating a business at Beach Port on the South Australian southeast coast, Brydaw Civil’s Dylan Hoffman has come a long way in the civil construction industry since rigging his last pot back in 2011.
Now the owner of civil construction firm Brydaw Civil since 2018, Dylan oversees a business that provides maintenance services for the NBN in South Australia and the Northern Territory and earthmoving and civil construction services mostly in Adelaide. The business also employs a team of 12 civil construction specialists. Brydaw Civil was originally launched in Beachport, South Australia as Hoffmann Trenching in 1999 by Dylan’s father and mother, Chris, and Pam Hoffmann. The new communication business focused on laying and maintaining underground communication cables and pipes for Telstra. In 2004, Chris and Pam Hoffmann decided to shift Hoffmann Trenching to the Northern Territory where it operated between Darwin and Uluru and beyond. The family-owned and operated firm has since moved back to South Australia, changing its name to Brydaw Civil and expanding its civil construction services and into asbestos removal. Dylan Hoffmann explains the name change was forced on the firm because there are many businesses in Adelaide using the surname ‘Hoffmann’ as part of their brand. “We were getting wrong invoices from suppliers, while invoices for us were also going missing. So, we changed the business name to Brydaw Civil which is an amalgam of mum and dad’s middle names – Bryan and Dawn.” In the civil contracting space, the now Waterloo Corner-based company focuses primarily on earthmoving and subcontracts to larger companies such as AR Contracting Services, BMD, and similar Tier 2 construction businesses in Adelaide. As part of its services, Brydaw Civil offers a broad range of diggers of various sizes, including a Hitachi ZX225 and tip trucks, water trucks, bobcats, and vac trucks.
GROWING ON THE BACK OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE BOOM IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA
When Chris and Dylan Hoffmann shifted Brydaw Civil to Adelaide from Darwin, it was on the basis that demand for civil construction specialists was growing rapidly in the South Australian capital. Currently, there is a $12.9 billion pipeline of infrastructure projects creating thousands of jobs annuallyi . This investment includes congestionbusting road and public transport upgrades and school and hospital upgrades. Dylan Hoffman said, “We’re growing as Adelaide grows.” At the time of writing, Brydaw Civil is involved with the $98 million Portrush and Magill Road Intersection Upgradeii and the $13 million Nairne Intersection Upgradeiii. Brydaw is supplying diggers for Nairne project that involves the construction of a fourway, single-lane roundabout realigning the Woodside Road and Saleyard Road T-junctions with the Old Princes Highway at Nairne.
CRAYFISHING TO CIVIL CONSTRUCTION
Dylan Hoffmann is under no illusions that commercial cray fishing taught him the value of hard work and set him up for his future endeavours in civil construction. Crayfishing is a seasonal enterprise running from October to May, but when the fishermen haul in the pots of gold, the work is seven days a week. “Every day you’re fishing whether it was raining or windy and whether the seas were big and rough. You’d still have to fish,
no matter what,” said Hoffmann, who started in his grandfather’s crayfishing business straight out of school.
The crayfishing business operated in Beachport, a coastal village in the southeast of South Australia. To supplement his income, Dylan Hoffman bought a small earthworks company also in Beachport. Then in 2014, Dylan moved to Darwin to join Brydaw Civil. “It was a father-son thing. Dad just said to me, “Do you want to come and help me out and actually, you can have the reins at the end of the day.” So, the younger Hoffman packed up his business in Beachport and moved to Darwin with his machinery to begin a joint venture with his father.
“IT'S JUST PURE HARD WORK AND GRIT. ”
RETURN TO SOUTH AUSTRALIA
In 2016, the Hoffmanns decided to move Brydaw Civil to Adelaide as the bulk of the NBN work in the Northern Territory was concluding. “Work was picking up in Adelaide at the same time. Moreover, in South Australia firms in the civil construction industry were struggling to find crews of workers,” Dylan Hoffman said. “So, we brought the business to Adelaide.”
To demonstrate the success of the interstate move, in 2014, when Dylan Hoffmann joined Brydaw Civil, it employed two personnel. Just over seven years later, the Adelaide firm now has a workforce of 12. “The growth of the business is due to the surge in infrastructure projects in Adelaide,” Hoffmann admits. “However, we’ve also made some good contacts, and we do a lot of work now for those contacts.”
Dylan Hoffmann continued, “The machinery side of the business has only grown in the last 18 months to a year. Basically, we grew the business from NBN work, and then we started branching off into heavier equipment. Because the NBN wires and cables are now so good, it was just the quality and the efficiency of the work we were judged on. So, with better machinery, we could do big jobs quickly and efficiently, with no defects. We were known for our ‘right-the-first-time’ work.” As a cray fisherman, Dylan Hoffmann worked mostly with his grandfather, so operating with 12 employees is a significant point of difference from his first commercial enterprise. That said, Hoffmann’s tips for maintaining a suitable working culture are refreshingly straightforward.
On being a boss, Hoffmann admits that with the civil construction on turbocharge in Adelaide, “Things have been a bit hectic lately. However, as a business owner and boss, I like the friendships you make, and being able to drive around and generate work but also keeping my hand in on projects. “By keeping my hand in, if I run my eye over a job, I can tell my employees exactly how I want to get work done. “So, I stay on the tools to get the job done how I want it done efficiently. I like staying ahead of the game, which I can only do when I’ve got good workers behind me because I am confident, I can leave them to their own initiative go and start the other jobs.”
LEARNINGS FROM WORKING IN THE FAMILY BUSINESS
While Chris Hoffmann has taken a backseat at Brydaw Civil in recent times, son Dylan Hoffmann says his father still takes an active interest and has taught him the importance of managing expenditure over the years. Dad has taught me the value of being wise with how you spend money and what areas you spend it in. He was particularly big on not spending it in areas where you’re not generating cash flow.”
Also, having taken over two businesses from family members, Hoffmann has learnt a thing or two about the importance of succession planning. In the early 2000s, Hoffmann took over the crayfishing business from his maternal grandfather and Brydaw Civil, more recently from his father. “Well, I guess the only reason you take over a business, whether it be a grandfather or a father, is they were running a successful business for many years.”
CRAYFISH OR CIVIL CONSTRUCTION
Hoffmann admits it’s a slam dunk for the civil construction sector when choosing between operating a heavy excavator or trapping crayfish. “Yeah, the industry is good in Adelaide, especially because it’s smaller than Sydney and Melbourne,” says Hoffmann. “Some people call Adelaide a big city, but generally, with the construction industry here, you know most people, so you run into someone in the pub and have a beer with them or go to a function and win some work. You can catch up and have a chat with people because you generally know a lot of people in the business in Adelaide, because the infrastructure sector is very tightknit here.”
i https://www.premier.sa.gov.au/news/mediareleases/news/south-australia-reaches-record129-billion infrastructure-pipeline-creatingthousands-of-jobs ii https://www.dit.sa.gov.au/infrastructure/road_ projects/magill iii https://dit.sa.gov.au/infrastructure/road_ projects/nairne_intersection_upgrade
