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Master Builder Victoria
IN MEMORIAM
Vale Len Barlow PRESIDENT, 1997-1998
L
en Barlow, President of the Master Builders Association of Victoria from 1997-1998, passed away on 24 May this year. Len had been elected President during his directorship with Hooker Cockram Ltd. Len was born and educated in England. He recalled his boyhood in London at the time of the Battle of Britain during the Second World War, and attributed this as a formative experience in developing his character. Longtime friend and colleague David Judd recalls the setting for Len’s earlier years in the industry: “KG Hooker Builders was incorporated in 1951. We purchased T R & L Cockram around 1979 from Bill Cockram. We consolidated the two businesses as Hooker Cockram in 1986 and traded under that name for 25 years until we changed to Cockram Construction in 2011, the 150th anniversary year of Thomas Cockram’s first building company in Victoria.” Len started at K. G. Hooker Builders in 1973 as a Construction Manager after working earlier in Victoria with Costain
and in South Australia with Baulderstone. Len became the Construction Director of Hooker Cockram and continued as a Director of the group well after his retirement as a Senior Manager. Len was Director of Construction for Hooker Cockram, from the late 1980s at a time when the company changed its focus from general commercial construction, concentrating on more specialist projects in Melbourne and regional Victoria, taking on the challenge of private schools, (Scotch College and Wesley College), hospitals (St Andrews Hospital) and developing a niche business in the construction of pharmaceutical manufacturing plants, such as CSL, David Bull Laboratories and Glaxo Pharmaceuticals in Mulgrave. In his Costain days, Len built BP House on St Kilda Road and, during his time as Construction Director at HCL he was partly responsible for the location and refurbishment of the Skipping Girl sign, putting it back into the skyline for future generations to enjoy. At the time, there were few hospitals or regional nursing homes in Victoria that Hooker Cockram or its predecessors
hadn’t built, extended or refurbished in some way. Len became President of Master Builders at a time when industrial relations were at the forefront of the construction industry, and trade union membership had fallen from almost a half of construction workers to a third in 1997. Popular, studious and soft-spoken, Len is fondly remembered by Master Builders staff, colleagues and fellow board members as a gentleman. “Len was well known and respected throughout the building industry,” Judd said. “He was a supportive leader, stoic and practical, unflappable in tough times and always great company to be with, especially over a whisky and a yarn. He was a genuinely respectful man with good family values. I have been blessed to have known Len and shared a large part of my working life with him.”