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Hydraulics FOCUS would like to thank Bernie Harper from New England Hydraulics for sharing his 20 years in business with us. Congratulations Bernie!
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ow long have you lived in Armidale, and please tell us about your family ... I moved to Armidale in October 1991, where I married local physiotherapist Kate Hind. We have 2 children, Kirsten and Lachlan – both are now planning to do some tertiary education, and we are also expecting our first grandchild in January. Kate runs and operates her own business, Kate Hind Physiotherapy. Kirsten plans to go to university next year and Lachlan will have a Gap Year before going to university in 2014. How did you first get into hydraulics? I finished high school in 1975 and worked casually for a hydraulics and pneumatics company whilst studying to become a health and build-
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ing inspector – and found this was not for me. This hydraulics and pneumatics company then provided a full-time job in the their parts store, where I could then see all the parts that went into manufacturing fully assembled items and became interested in how these all operate and function. Pongrass Industries manufactured and imported hydraulic and pneumatic components – it was an old style company which had its own hydraulic and pneumatic cylinder design drawing room, with mechanical engineers, tool room, hydraulic cylinder honing facility, hydraulic cylinder welding facility, full range of manual and automatic lathes, and also the latest NC Machines, when these were first available in the Australian market. To say the least, it provided a great
grounding. They must have seen something in me, and they provided a ½ day per week to allow me to go to TAFE and complete the Mechanical Engineering Certificate. This new opportunity provided the opportunity to further understand how all these products that were manufactured actually function and work from an engineering point of view. Pongrass then moved me into sales, where I was able to use these new skills to design pneumatic and hydraulic systems with components manufactured in their plant and imported from overseas. I was approached by Malcolm Moore, who were distributors for Rexroth, one of the leading brands on the world market.
My role there was to design systems that suited the customers’ requirements with the assistance of other engineers within the business. The system, once built, would then be installed, commissioned and refined for repeat orders. Malcolm Moore were innovators in the hydraulics industry, and we were able to grow the business. The business was then sold to BTR Indeng, and we all left to start a new business, Rexroth Hydraulics Australia, in 1987. Within 2 weeks of leaving, we were trading and had branches in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Rexroth has become the no. 1 suppliers of hydraulic systems in Australia. Describe the changes you have seen in this