Join us for an insightful conversation with James Thorning, General Manager of Nepean Power, as he shares his journey from a small-town upbringing to leading a major engineering company. James discusses his career path, the challenges of rapid business growth, and the importance of fostering a strong company culture. He offers valuable advice for aspiring engineers and leaders, emphasising the significance of being useful in one’s role and continuously improving. James also provides an inside look at Nepean Power’s operations, their innovative approach to manufacturing, and their vision for the future of the power industry in the Hunter region. This episode is packed with wisdom on leadership, career development, and the exciting opportunities in the engineering and renewable energy sectors. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting your career, you’ll find inspiration and practical insights in this engaging discussion.
Please note: this transcript has been auto-generated and may contain some errors.
Thanks for joining me on the newey tech people engineering success podcast series. Today I’m joined by James Thorning, who is the general manager from Nepean Power. Thanks for joining us, James.
How are you? Thanks for having me, Mel. You’re welcome. So I guess I’d like to kick off by just talking a little bit about your background, I guess.
Walk us through your career for those that may not know and kind of where you’ve come from. Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in a small town of Yass, new Canberra.
Okay. In country New South Wales. I guess I had a pretty humble upbringing.
I was always quite good at math and physics growing up through school, I really wanted to go to university and I took up university at University of Wollongong. Okay. I did computer engineering was my background right after uni that time to get a job.
So I joined one steel at the time. Okay. As a graduate in the Wollongong region, I actually took a job in Wiala in South Australia.
Oh, wow. Okay. So I went from Wollongong to Wiala in the big move.
And if you’re gonna do the big move, do it when you’re young, you know. So I went to work at a pelletizing plant at the steelworks in whaler. Okay.
It was definitely an experience going to a place where they had limited senior resources. They struggled for, you know, people down there as well. So within twelve months down there, I taken off the graduate program as such and put into a full time role as the maintenance supervisor, looking after engineering and electrical maintenance of the plant.
After two years of that, I then wanted to move back to Newcastle. I want to say wanted to move back to Newcastle. I moved to Newcastle for love at the time.
Okay. Yeah, yeah. And then I started my career with Nepean.
So I started as a site service engineer doing a lot of commissioning activities, a lot of work in the underground coal space, a lot of travel throughout the east coast of Australia, be it Queensland and New South Wales, as you do when you’re young. Yeah, I did a lot. I would be up and down New South Wales more than once a week, doing thousands of kilometres in the car, a lot of long hours.
But I really enjoyed the work. It was very rewarding. I built a lot of good relationships at all the different customers I had.
And I still to this day believe that a lot of those relationships are what have sort of made me successful and what I do now. And you don’t just build work colleagues, you build good friends when you’re doing that as well. Absolutely.
So I sort of changed roles around 2012 2013. So I come over in 2009 back from Waiala. 2012 2013 I changed into a senior applications role.
Okay. Where I was starting to wind back the travel I was doing and helping the engineering departments more with the knowledge I’d built while traveling and especially in the conveyor space. I sort of worked myself into a fairly good conveyor engineer as such in terms of the electrical electrification side of it ended up supporting us, the sister company of the company.
Yeah, the system company in the pan, that’s for sure. And in doing that application role I realized I was, I really enjoyed doing that solution creation with the customer. We would spend a lot of time talking to the customers about what particular solutions they need.
They’d want helping design projects upfront. Yeah. And then helping the sales team put those tenders and those offers together for those solutions.
Whilst doing that, that natively pushed me more towards the business development side of the business which in late 20 1415 results in me running the BD department of Nepent Power. And I did that for eight years. Wow, that’s a long time.
Yeah. And then so eight years went by and I committed myself a lot of long hours in that role as well. We did a lot of work within the business around strategy.
I learned all my craft around what it is to run a business and my business acumen come from that role. And then one and a half years ago I took on the general manager role as one of our shareholders wanted to start a wind himself out of the business. So now, yeah, that’s how I ended up in the general manager role.
So how many years have you been with Napayn for now? Now 15 years. Just over 15 years. So long term employee.
Yeah. That’s great that someone can start at that level and grow throughout an organization though as well. Yeah, absolutely.
And start in one role and transition to others and learn the business along the way. I guess that’s the, a bit of the message I like to share with people and a journey of how you can build a career. You’re not just a technical person, you can grow it however you like.
Yeah. And I think you drive that very much yourself by your attitude. Absolutely, absolutely.
Very good. And just backtracking. So you studied computer science at uni? It was computer engineering.
So back when I started uni in 2002, it was a computer engineering degree I chose to do. And I didn’t realize at the time I was a little bit naive to engineering at the time. I knew I was good at physics and maths.
I just chose some degrees based on that. Wollongong accepted me and it wasn’t until I really got into uni that realized that there were between the electrical civil computer. Everybody was doing the same subjects in the first year as such.
And then it wasn’t until really year four that between computer and electrical did anything really digress away from each other. Yeah. Okay.
So I had a really good base set of knowledge for the electrical side of things. And when I took my job with Onesteel whilst my certificate said computer engineering, I was really sort of a power systems engineer. Yeah.
A lot of heavy 415, 6.6 and eleven kv sort of voltages. So it was more heavy industrial power stuff I became familiar with.
And I guess they overlap pretty well as well. Yeah, that’s right. I’ve always had an interest in tech as well, which has helped me along the way, but it’s not really my core set anymore.
Yeah. So. Yeah.
Awesome. And I know you were touching on, I guess, what you’re good at at school, which could have potentially went a few different areas. But why engineering? I mean, when I was at school, if I look back, I was a little bit lost, I gotta say.
Yeah. You know when you’re in year eleven and twelve and you got to make some decisions around what career choice you want to do. All I knew at that time, I had no idea what career I wanted to go into.
I knew I was good at certain subjects. So I chose that degree, that leverage towards those subjects. Yeah.
To allow me some time. Got myself into uni to think about what I wanted to do. Yeah.
And to be honest, I made a good choice. Absolutely. Yeah.
I’m a big fan of degrees. The job titles as well. Because there’s an employment at the end.
Yeah, yeah. Why I got into engineering, it’s a bit of a grey area for me. It was just a decision I made that I don’t really know why I made it, but it was a good choice.
Good choice, yeah. So just stick with what you’re good at is my. Absolutely.
I think if you enjoy something and you’re good at it, you excel. Just naturally excel at it. Yeah, absolutely.
Put yourself into it. You’ll fall along the way. I certainly did along the way at uni.
I’m no model student, you know, but you learn from those mistakes along the way and you’re better for it. And I think like if you can’t even look back of probably people growing up in Yass, I grew up in a country town as well. Like there’s probably not that many people that, you know, to leave and go to uni elsewhere is actually a pretty big step in itself.
Absolutely. Yeah. I left home.
I was. I was still 17 when I went down to uni in Wollongong. While everyone’s out partying, I couldn’t even get into a pub to have a drink with anybody.
Yeah, it was a big leap. Went and lived on my own. Had all the life.
Battles of rent and. Yeah, all those fun things. Eating two minute noodles.
Two minute noodles, weed bakes for breakfast and dinner. Yeah, it’s just. Yeah, it’s what we did to get through uni those days.
So. Yeah, so I guess often in our career there’s often, I guess, a key person that we might reflect back on and consider them a mentor who’s had a pretty big impact. Have you had someone like that in your career so far? I don’t think there’s ever been anyone that’s been across my whole career but just key people at certain times that have been really good, I guess mentors for myself in terms of my technical aspects of my career.
I had a really good mentor, Rowan Molloy, who I still talk to probably once or twice a year as it is. More from a technical point of view. He’s always the person you call on the one home in the car that I’ll talk to and just thrash ideas out with.
Yeah. Haven’t done it for a while, but he’s. I know he’s always there and we built a relationship.
We go skiing and stuff together occasionally as well. So he was always a really good technical mentor for me, I guess, on the business and that more financial side of it. I’ve been, I guess, blessed with good people in my life around that.
Yeah. My father in law, Mark Stephens, who was a business analyst financially, for one, still Rem as well. He.
A lot of evening conversations, talking about business in general, just understanding the world outside of engineering because whilst I’ve got a good technical base, that business management base was weak and I had to grow that over the years. Yeah. So it was nice having those people in my life.
And also we’ve got some really good shareholders in our company that are very open, very energetic around training the management team up in that space. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s not really one person, but just many people across time that’s built where I am today.
So I guess everyone adds value with what their strengths are. That’s right. I mean, it’d be nice to say I’ve had one mentor along the whole way.
But then I think it’s nice to have multiple people for different things that you can leverage. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
So Nepean power, I should say, because there’s different arms, and Nepean are hitting 30 years in operations this year. Yeah, that’s right. Which I think is credit to the brand itself that it’s been operating so long.
So I’ll probably touch on a little bit. Nepean itself. Yeah.
So Nepean itself started in 1974 by the late David Fuller out of an engineering shop, engineering and tool making shop in Norellen. Yeah, that’s where the Nepean brand started from. And throughout the nineties, they got better and they were really engaged in the mining space around building conveyor components and equipment.
And then they became more into that conveyor space. In 2007, Nepean Myles Fuller became the CEO of the Nepean. And then Miles, in 2021, bought out the other shareholders and now owns it privately in his own name.
Okay. All right, so we are fully private company as Nepean. Yup.
Nepean Power. How does that play in that mix? So, Nepean, we started as Mi Power in 1994 by Jeff Sweeney, started the business, Nepean bought into the business in around 2002, 2003, and we rebadged from Mi Power to Nepean power in 2010, if I remember correctly. Yeah.
And we’ve been Nepean power ever since. So Nepean these days is a global company. It’s a humble beginnings, 1974.
There’s more than 1900 people employed across the globe now in Nepean. And we are a very global, diverse company now. And we have many engineering arms in that space.
30 years this year in the PM power, which is very exciting. And it’s been a journey along the way, that’s for sure. And I think something you just touched on, which is, I think, unique to australian owned businesses.
But I think where a lot of other businesses are going is that, you know, diversity piece. Yeah. You know, the multicultural, diverse approach that the business has.
Yes, that’s right. We’re a very diverse place inside Nepean. There’s over 30 plus individual p and ls.
But we do, you know, we have Nepean conveyors. There’s proc, which does idlers and pulleys. We have our peen, which does the balance machines and the scraper reclaimers for ports, etcetera.
And they are a very big engineering company based out of Austria with offices in Canada. Nepean Power, Napean, Longwall, the likes of Weldlock and Galserve, and Galintal, which are our building and infrastructure products and we still have Nepean engineering which is where it all started, which is a heavy fabrication shop down in Norellen. It’s still one of the largest fabrication shops in that area.
Very diverse. There’s a range of engineering skill sets across all those businesses. Civil, electrical, mechanical, all the arms complement each other well for they do.
They’re all bolt on businesses. That allows Nepean to be very competitive in that turnkey project space. Yeah.
And I think locally, like focusing obviously on hunter manufacturing awards at the moment, I think even just the footprint of the Nepean businesses across the hunter, both Newcastle and Central coast, is quite significant. It’s quite significant, yeah. So Nepean Power, we’re currently employed just shy of 200 people up at Thornton and Nepea and Longwall as well.
They’re out at Rutherford and we have a pulley business down at a little bit out of the hunter, down at the Gosford area. So we have quite a good footprint in the Hunter Valley and we hope to grow a bit more with the alpine business doing balance and rotating machines, which will be great as well. Something that you’re mentioning earlier.
Obviously Nepean power feels like you’re going through period of growth at the moment. But I think often apprentices are a great sign that businesses are growing because you know, you’re building your pipeline from the bottom up. So yeah, we’ve gone through quite an extensive period of growth over the past sort of eight years because we used to very much ride the waves of the hunter coal mining industry.
Yeah, we’d have the ups, we’d have the downs. Our turnover change radically from one year to the next in terms of people and revenues. Yeah.
So we started diversifying the business, trying to diversify. But way back in 2014 we’re back at then we’re probably employing around, I think in 2013 would have had about 80 people working for us. By the end of 2014 we’re probably down to 60.
We’re quite small. We knew we had to change. We knew we couldn’t ride that wave forever.
It was hard to manage. So we tried to start diversifying and we had many strategic sessions around where do we want to play, what skills do we have now that we can transition into other markets? We tried to play in places like the water industry and other like defense. We looked at them all and we tried to do in that space.
And what eventually happened to us at that time, we ended up going back to what we know is the coal market came back up again. Yeah, we all went back to that, and then we finally made a big call in early 2020, it would have been 2021 to really split the business in two. So now we have a mining sort of side of our business, which looks, after all, our traditional companies.
While that booms, it’s okay. And we have what we call it the Eni energy and infrastructure side of it, which focuses heavily on the energy infrastructure space, whether it be renewables, anything to do with electrical infrastructure for distribution purposes, and with our product range being there, being the modular building. So we do a lot of modular buildings for those industries that contain switchgear, and that’s really driven our growth.
Yeah. So it’s. While the mining’s been, well, that side of it’s picked up, and in the space of three years, we’ve gone and employing about 80 people to near 200.
As I said, huge growth, and we deal with all the challenges of that growth. You talked about the people side of it with apprentices. So, yeah, at the moment, we currently employ 21 apprentices across electrical and fabrication trades, range of years, first to fourth year, which has been really good.
It’s good to have that apprentices coming through the business. We had a bit of a. I would have said five years ago, or a bit low on our apprentice intake, but we’re very disciplined on it now, making sure we’re building that pipeline.
Yeah. Because if you’re not building it, it’s very hard to get the skilled resources for what we do from outside of the industry. Yeah.
So, yeah, we put a lot of effort into maintaining that. Apprentices, I think we have 18 electrical apprentices at the moment and three fabrication apprentices. Really high volume.
Yeah, yeah. And do you do the same with your grads? Do you have many grads? Yep. Graduates as well.
We like to start with cadets. Yeah. While people are still at uni, look for them to do part time work, whether it be one or two days a week, working their holidays between semesters.
It really allows us to get people engaged early. You can start to find the graduates, or the potential graduates that are a good fit for our culture and our business, to have the right character for the business we work within. And it’s really good for them as well, because they can start to see some practical skills of what they’re learning and then.
So we’ve got. I think we’ve got three cadets on the books at the moment and three graduates. So six in that engineering space, all fresh out of uni.
So that’s exciting. Yeah, we like to take in a couple each year. Just keep rotating through.
Yeah. Because it just builds that pipeline and, you know, we really struggle to get experienced labor. Yeah.
But we’re out recruiting for electrical engineer or experienced draftsmen in this. In the age group that can walk straight into it. It’s really hard and very competitive.
Yeah. So we like to try and keep that pipeline growing and just nurture our stars from an early age. Yeah.
And I think it’s certainly a common story throughout the hunter with some of those skill shortages in those areas. Yeah. And we’ve experienced the skill shortage quite a lot over the past few years, especially with our growth in engineering in a, I guess, in a fairly bespoke industry with what we do, whether it be building switch rooms or building conveyors or building substations for underground, it’s a skill set that takes time to learn and understand the product.
Yeah. So just walking in can take six months before they’re fully engaged and useful to the business, which that lead in time is, you know, it’s expensive. Absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah. Because I guess there’s, you know, competitors do similar things, but each business is different and has a different culture and that’s exactly right.
Yeah. There’s different ways of doing things in different businesses. Personally, I’m looking for someone who’s got a good core set of knowledge, but also of good character.
Fit in with the team because we can teach people skills, but it’s harder to teach character and that’s. Absolutely, yeah. Once again, I think a common thing when we’re chatting to clients, obviously technical skills.
Great. But. Yeah.
Those soft skills and that team fit has such a big impact on the whole team. Yeah. Critical, 100% if they’re not the right person.
And we like to say if they’re on the bus or not on the bus. Yeah. If they’re not on the bus, it’s hard to.
Hard to get them engaged, but if you bring them in and they’re a go getting kind of personality, then. Yeah. Fantastic.
So you touched on a little bit before about diversifying the business. Now, looking at Eni and even, I guess, projects like western Sydney Airport, would you like to talk us through some key projects that you have been working on recently? Yeah. So on the back of us having.
Building this Eni side of our business using the modular building or the switch room, essentially. So we picked up some projects, one being we built three switch rooms with Schneider for western Sydney Airport, which for us was a fairly highly visible one for what was going on out there. We also picked up a job last year in the renewable space for the McIntyre and Carra wind farm in south east Queensland.
So we built eight switch rooms for energy Queensland through their engineering arm, Eureka. Yeah, first probably big showpiece that we could do for in that renewable space. We’ve done some other small ones with west Wylong solar farm as well.
And also we’re doing quite a large project with Endeavour energy at the moment for Batteries Creek Zone sub, which is a 132 kv substation using GIS switchgear. These are all projects that have all been allowed us to get into that space using the switch room or modular building. The modular building for us, it wasn’t new to us.
We built a lot of switch rooms for their mining customers over the years, but never transferred that into the energy and infrastructure market. So that’s been our push and our revenue growth has come from that. Yeah, cool.
I was chatting to some of your team a couple of months ago and I think what I found interesting was how large some of them were and obviously exciting that you can design and manufacture at the site at Thornton, but actually how they’re transported for that installation, it’s really interesting as well. Yeah, that’s right. We’ve done some fairly large rooms around that, 25 to 27 metres long, five, five and a half meters wide, 50 plus tonnes, and transporting them from Thornton all the way to middle of Queensland.
Yeah, it’s amazing what the transport companies can do. We can build a big room, but it’s really cool what the transport companies can do to get them there. But, yeah, nothing’s off the table.
You know, you can build them in all different sizes, you can ship them in components and put them back together. Yeah. You can put them on boats if you need to.
Yeah, true. It’s amazing what can be done. Yeah.
So, yeah. But I think that’s something really cool about what you do, you know, once again, you know, you’ve got your design team there and all your other engineers, but I think from a design engineer being able to actually see what you’re designing with all the trades and the manufacturing team, there is something like, I guess, a unique selling point. Oh, absolutely.
The difference, I guess, between being career path choices. You can be a consultant and learn what the consultant does, but it’s really nice to be working as an engineer in a manufacturing company where your designs become physical items in the workshop and you can walk out there every single day and see what the electricians are wiring putting together, have involvement from start to finish and that’s whether it be a structural build or electrical build, to have your hands in it from start to finish is a really cool thing to be able to do. Yeah.
So I guess, why did you decide to build a career in the Hunter region? I touched on earlier that originally came here for love, but when I was in Wollongong, I really enjoyed my life in Wollongong and what I had there. So when I wanted to come back from South Australia over to the east coast, I was looking for those similarities. And I really like Newcastle.
It’s a town that’s got big industry, big hospital, big schools. It’s got all the amenities of a big city, but it’s not Sydney. Yeah, that was one of my big things.
I didn’t want to be down in the rush of Sydney. And Newcastle and the Hunter Valley has all the things of a big city without being in a big city. So that was one of my main drivers.
It’s also very close to all the industries. There’s many choices for industries in Newcastle through consultant manufacturing, mine sites direct. There’s the ports.
Yeah. We’re also very close for travel. We have an airport that’s very close.
Train stations. You know, we’re connected to the freeway. It just ticks all the boxes of why it’s a great place to be.
Yeah, I think I remember when I first moved up here. It still even had all the cool stuff. It still had the vibe of a big country town in a way.
That kind of warmth to it 100%. And that’s, you know, I’ve always likened it to Wollongong. And that’s the feel I got out of Wollongong.
Coming from a country town. And Newcastle has that vibe right through it. But it is getting bigger now.
There’s more and more people and things. There’s more high rises going up, but it still maintains that feel. And.
Yeah, that’s probably the main reasons I really wanted to. I’ve came here and I’m still here 15 years later. I don’t think I’ll be moving anywhere anytime soon.
Very good. Yeah. So nepean power as a business working out of the hunter.
What do you think are the advantages of being a hunter based business? I like where it is positioned, the business itself, because it’s very close to our core market, I guess. What was our core market? Yeah, it’s now transitioning a little bit in the mining space. And it’s also very close to the.
You know, for transport purposes. We can be in the hunter. We can get to Brisbane in it in the morning, get back in the afternoon.
Same with Melbourne. It’s easy access to up into Mackay and the coalfields up there. It’s very easy to get around from Newcastle.
So as a business in the Hunter region, it’s well connected in terms of what we do in our modular space. We’re connected to all the major freeways, which makes it very easy to ship large items long distances, nice and close to the m one where you are. Absolutely, yeah.
So being connected to those major hubs makes a big difference for a business also being where we’re positioned out at Thornton, we can source our, I guess, our labour pool from a bigger area as well. So all the way up the valley to all the way down to the coast in the lake area. You know, some businesses are probably, you know, finding people that are easy to get to Thornton is potentially easier than the other side of Tomogo.
That’s right. Like, it’s quite easy. You know, we got people.
Like, I’m one of those people. I live down in Charlestown. Yeah.
I travel to work every day up to Thornton, you know, and there’s others that live at Greta and Singleton and come down to Thornton each day. It’s quite a big net of people we can grab. Yeah.
And it’s. It’s well connected to all those different industries and a great engineering hub. Yeah.
So, yeah. So I guess expanding a little bit further on what we’re just chatting about in regards to, I guess, the job market, how have you seen it change over the time that you’ve been working for Nepean? It’s been an interesting journey in the job market, especially post Covid. It’s been very hard to find good people, especially in the trade space, the tradespace.
People jump ship very quickly in our modular division, especially with carpenters and those style trios, they will jump ship for $0.50. Absolutely. They’ll just move around like, no to my.
Which makes continuity very hard. And we thrive on continuity because that’s how businesses make money. The same person, same job in the engineering space, just the resources disappeared.
You couldn’t find them. It was like a large chunk of people left the market, whether it was the older generation or what it was. But it was really hard to find people.
Yeah. So, post Covid, we’ve done some things to try and shore ourselves up for the future, one being the cadets and graduates, the apprenticeships. We’ve also looked overseas for resources as well, just to try and build that pipeline and maintain our business that way.
Yeah, I guess that working from home piece that has come along with COVID has that impacted your business? Not really. I would say the working from home has created that flexibility for a lot of different people. Yeah, we don’t have too many people working from home at the moment, but we give people the option when they really need it.
In terms of kids, family sicknesses, it just means that now all the technology is there. When they need to work from home, they can. We don’t have too many that permanently work from home.
In our business, we like a lot of our people to be connected to the business so they’re connected to the customer we find sitting at home. Especially for a manufacturing environment, there are certain roles. Absolutely.
That definitely working from home is an option for them. But, yeah, when it comes to that engineering and manufacturing piece, being connected is definitely key. Yeah, I think observing a lot of businesses are starting to bring their people back in the.
I think people can get a bit too disconnected working from home and sometimes miss out on that culture piece as well. Well, that’s right. And some people are definitely wired to work from home, too.
I’m not one of those people. I’m a person that loves to be connected to the workforce. And when I’m working from home, distractions are everywhere.
But when I’m in the office, you can be fully engaged. You connect into the workforce, but everybody’s different. And I think earlier we probably already chatted on some of the, I guess, benefits of why someone would choose Nepean power as an employer, whether they’re a tradesman or an engineer.
But, yeah. Could you share some thoughts on that? These days, Nepean is now a global company. Presents a lot of opportunity.
We have a highly motivated CEO that’s very energetic in Miles Fuller as an engineer coming into our company, there’s lots of potential for growth. Miles runs a leadership academy every year for the whole business that brings in engineers and employees from across the globe. Like this year.
That was only three weeks ago, our last conference. Yeah. And it gets together all these people from all these different businesses.
There was 250 people there. Wow. And it’s an opportunity to network and grow, learn about business leadership, strategic intent.
It’s a fantastic part of the business and to be really be part of a team that has great cultural values. Yeah. We have a Nepean called the Nepean DNA, which are seven cultural sort of beliefs, which is a really powerful thing when you start to really focus on them.
And based on all that moving on with the, I guess, career development choices you have at NAPN, we have people that start with NAPN. I tell you some good stories. We’ve had a girl start as an admin assistant that then grew herself into a cat operator, which is fantastic.
We had another girl start as a admin assistant, grew herself into a great project manager, now works for a competitor as an electrician. Just career development, which I think is fantastic. We have a lot of different growth.
Like I started as an engineer that turned into the general manager through different roles. But yeah, there’s career choices are endless because we have so many different roles and now with the diversity in terms of our global footprint, there’s options not just in Australia anymore within the pan, there’s options across the globe. Yeah.
Now we have the 60 engineers out of Austria of different sets. You could literally go work in Austria if you wanted to. Yeah, that’s really cool, isn’t it? So it’s really.
The engineering pool is massive within Nepenthe at the moment. Yeah. So which is a cool, cool thing to want to come work within.
Yeah, I think just a concept, you know, if you want to do international projects is pretty cool. Yeah, that’s right. And you know, I think one of the best things that Miles as the CEO ever did was that leadership academy in that it gives the high potentials, the management team a week every year of sort of focused training in that leadership and business space, which I don’t see many other companies going that full commitment to what that cost to do that for such a large employer base.
And it was a huge risk for him at the time. I’ve been a part of every one of those since he started doing it in like 2012. Yeah.
And I couldn’t imagine any other way of doing it. Like, it’s a huge investment, but it’s paid off for him. Yeah.
Something, you know, we often talk about in the hunter of businesses being really authentic to the core and I think it’s really important that, you know, a lot of businesses will easily say, oh, we invest in training and career development, but to actually say what you do and deliver, that is really important. Yeah. Investing in training and like it.
The training words always interesting one with me. Yeah. Because I have a lot of people who, and this is a pet hate.
Yeah. When people want to say, I want to get more training, more training, more training. Invest in me.
But I’m all about investing in yourself first. I’m a self taught kind of guy. Yeah.
Get involved, be part of the business, do the work, you’ll learn on the job. Yeah. Training comes along on the way.
Take those opportunities. Absolutely. When they come up, when someone wants to send you a management course or leadership course, definitely take them, but don’t expect that I’ll be handed to you.
You’ve got to earn them first. Absolutely, yeah. So that’s just my mentality towards the workforce is don’t expect her to be gifted everything, go and earn it yourself.
So we often, I guess, talk about innovation as a way to stay ahead in organizations. Could you share maybe some technology or steps that you’re taking as a business to stay ahead of the game? Yeah, I find innovation an interesting word and it can mean a lot of different things to different people. Yeah.
When we talk about innovation, I automatically think of continuous improvement. Always striving to be the best of what you’re doing, different ways of doing things, looking for a better way. Yeah.
A lot of people misinterpret innovation with invention. Yes. It’s not invention, it’s different.
Innovation is just like, for me, it’s that continuous improvement to always strive to be better as a business or as a person. It may not necessarily be the next best invention. So definitely we do a lot of, we try to be an innovative company.
We’re always looking for better, smarter ways to do things, but, yeah, it’s always a challenge. But you need to be always challenging your people to think of new and better ways to do things, otherwise you get left behind. Yeah.
And is there any like new software or programs or anything like that that you’ve rolled out across the business? We’ve tried a few things over the years. We’re currently heavily invested in the atlassian task management suite with Jira, but we’re also looking at changing that up at the moment into Microsoft Dynamics as well. So just our old ERP system’s not that great, so we’re looking at new tech to be able to better schedule plan our work, to have certainty of execution outcomes.
Yeah. Which is always a problem in manufacturing based business. That certainty of outcomes can be quite hard and especially the bigger you grow.
When you have one small change on one job, it’s hard to see the impact across all the other jobs that might be going through at that time. Yeah. So that’s the visibility we’re chasing at the moment.
Yeah. Cool. And you chatted a little bit before about, I guess, the growth, and that’s happened quite quickly.
What have been some challenges around that? I think the biggest challenge as you grow is keeping your experienced people connected to what’s happening. So you start relying on a lot of potentially, like, new people in the business to get the outcomes you need. And that experience can’t get into every project you do because they’re tied up elsewhere.
So managing QA through process becomes more challenging. And then when they. When we get those resources in, getting them up to speed so they’re doing their jobs the level we need them to, that’s also a challenge.
Yeah. So, Bs. The quicker you grow, you know, the harder it is to stay on top of it and it’s the strength of your systems that start to show through when that happens.
Yeah. And I know some people, when you speak of, I guess, fast growth, you know, even just maintaining culture. Yeah.
Can be a challenge. Have you found that at all? Yeah, absolutely. Maintaining culture and this is where when you’re employing people, especially when you’re busy and you’re looking for people to fill gaps.
Yeah. You end up employing bums on seats compared to the people that are. Right fit for the business.
Yeah. We talk about when you look back, you know, would you employ that person again? It’s a good exercise to do. Yeah.
Trying very hard not to employ bums on seats. And if you don’t feel right about something, wait. Yes, postpone it.
Don’t employ them. Wait till you’ve got the right person for the job. So.
And that’s some of the mistakes we’ve made over the past two years. We end up employing the wrong person for the. For that job instead of just waiting for the right person.
Yeah. Gut instinct goes a long way in the industry. You know, as you’re growing quickly, you’re really trying to.
People do it all the time. You put bums on seats to make them feel busy and get things done. Yeah.
Then you suffer for it in other areas. So I guess being in the industry for, you know, some time now. Yeah.
What would your advice be to someone new wanting to enter the industry? I’m going to use a bit of a quote from a book and a podcast I listened to recently by a guy called Jim Collins. He wrote a book called good to great. Yep.
So I picked up a podcast that he was a part of a little while ago. There was a good tidbit in it that I really, you know, took great value from where he was talking about where he was, had a mentor growing up, and he walked in to talk to his mentor about, you know, how do I be successful? Is what he said to his mentor. And his mentor turned around to him, said, you’re asking the wrong question.
And he said, what do you mean? He said, you should be asking, how can I be useful? And he said, you should be useful at what you do, put all your effort into being useful and then successful breed from that being useful. And I thought it was a really good key moment where it reflects self and reflection, where I look back at my career and people that are coming up, those that are very useful and very good at their jobs tend to be more successful than the ones that are just getting by. So my advice is to anyone entering that engineering trade space, you know, be as good as you can be at your job and you will be successful from that.
Because success rubs off on others. Yeah. You know, and then everyone becomes successful from it.
So that’s just. It was a great little bit of information. It’s very simple, but yeah, if you’re trying to get into a manufacturing or engineering space, really think you should focus there first before just trying to jump the queue and be the next successor to everybody.
Build your knowledge base first. Yeah. If you build your knowledge base and everything, you can learn everything else, but keep building.
Build your core set what you’re going to lean on for the rest of your life and then you can. You’ll transition into lots of other areas. Yeah, I really like that.
Yeah. Yeah. So I guess being a leader and, you know, obviously that’s quite a loose term as well sometimes, but involves a lot of continuous growth.
Is there a standout moment in your career or stand up moments, perhaps? It’s a challenging one to answer because there’s a lot of little moments that lead to big things, I guess, in terms of the technical space, like, I think because I really focus quite heavily on the technical stuff for a long time. Yeah. And probably a standout moment to me is just some of the big projects I’ve been involved with.
One of them being a job that I did for a mine up in Queensland, there was a very complex conveyor, high powered, downhill. It looked like a big spoon, effectively, but the complexities of that system and the involvement of being in that system really gave me a great mindset and knowledge base around conveyors because that touched on everything. And that one job that I worked on because I was part of it from start to finish, really around the dynamic control of that conveyor belt, gave me that real, I guess, core set of knowledge in that space to the point where, you know, one of the, you know, I guess one of the experts in the business on that conveyor control.
Yep. So, yeah, in terms of that one moment, technically, that’s probably one of the better ones. Yeah.
In terms of all the other moments that make their leader, I’m a bit. I like to be more of a technical leader than a how else you would describe it. Yeah.
And then people follow that, you know, that knowledge base around and, and then it becomes from how you handle yourself more than anything else. Yeah. So, yeah.
Not just one big moment. Yeah. If it is, it’s a bit odd.
I think it’s lots of little moments that add into the bigger picture. Yeah. So, yeah.
Yeah. And I think it’s good to kind of, you know, lead by example and people follow. That’s right.
People follow character. People follow the person as well. People don’t leave businesses.
They leave managers. It’s a bit of a mantra to follow. You know, people are leaving your business, they’re leaving you.
And when they do leave you, like, I hate when people say they’re going to leave because I’m thinking, what have I done wrong business, or what have I done wrong as a person? And then that self reflection from then is quite hard. Like, I still remember one of the first times in a manager role when I was managing sales and someone left, I was like, what have I done? But at least you have that self reflection moment because I think that’s probably critical to your own growth and the business growth because unfortunately, some people wouldn’t have that momentous. That’s right.
And it’s, it’s a case of when people do leave, and I’m a big fan of if people leave, and it’s because I can’t give them anything more for them to grow. I think that’s fantastic. Just be open about it.
Talk about it with your boss, your manager, you know, like, what can I do? Look, you’re in a role. I think if you go to this role here, it’ll be really good for you and we’ll take you back later, but leave on a good note. Yeah.
And you’ll always come back. At Nepean, we’ve had many people that have left go and got other experiences and come back and been a huge asset to the business. Yeah.
Because, you know, you do hit a ceiling, especially in some small businesses. But there’s no further growth that’s going to be close, but you need it. Yeah.
So don’t be afraid to have those conversations with your managers and your bosses. And, you know, it’s a trap. You can get in as, I guess, an engineer coming through where there’s senior engineers in the business, and you think, how do I get to that next level? What do I need to do? And it might be a case of talk to your manager.
It might be a case of go to another opportunity. We’ll get you back when you’re ready or we can plan a path for you internally. Yeah.
So, yeah. And I think what you just touched on there about leaving and coming back, it’s so important. I think Newcastle and the hunters, you know, reasonably small, everyone knows each other, that it’s really important not to burn bridges.
Oh, absolutely. It’s such a small industry. If you have a hiccup, everybody knows about it.
Yeah. Where do you see, I guess that power manufacturing industry heading in the next five to ten years? I still think there’s quite a lot of growth to be had, especially in the Hunter Valley. There’s a lot of renewables projects happening in New South Wales and Queensland at the moment for us and where we position ourselves to be able to do modular rooms and switch rooms.
I see ourselves as a key partner to a lot of those projects and there’s plenty of work within those projects to share amongst all the businesses in the area. It’s not just a singular focus. Whilst every business would be loved to win them all, but the capacity to do them all at once is another problem.
Yeah. And it’s interesting. Four or five years ago I was attending more mining conferences.
Now I’m attending more energy and renewables conferences. Just a complete mindset change and seeing the plans on the. What Queensland has planned about their conference that I went to back in February, seeing what New South Wales has planned, seeing what the hunter has planned with the offshore wind and other renewables projects going on, there’s so much work and infrastructure to happen.
I don’t see that being quiet for any time soon. Yeah. And even back to our traditional markets where in the coal space there’s still coal mines extending their leases, especially in the metallurgical coal space where it’s still required for steel making throughout the globe.
I don’t see that dying down anytime soon. So in terms of longevity of the business. Yeah, I think all the manufacturing business in the hunter in a good position.
Yeah. Especially when there’s a lot of other manufacturing industries that are, you know, falling over. I think it’s a.
It’s a time where, you know, the manufacturing presence in the hunter should still grow. Yeah. So, yeah, feels like almost the busiest we’ve been in the power like industry in quite some time.
Absolutely. And it’s. And I think it’s really on the back of the renewable plans.
The renewable plans for New South Wales are extensive. If you’ve ever seen the presentations of what they want to get to, there is a lot of work to happen in a reasonably short amount of time in the scheme of things, but there is still a lot of work to happen. And it’s not just in the.
We think of ourselves, an electrical manufacturer, but there’s a lot of other trades, a lot of other industries that take part in that electrical infrastructure space. Oh, of course. Yeah.
So Nepean, as a business, coming from a trades person or an engineer’s perspective, why would I want to work for you? One of the things that Nepean brings, we have a really good cultural values, which we like to encourage and foster in all our people. And that is, and we call the Nepean DNA, okay. Which is seven core values, which are make the customer successful, be professional, take ownership, get things done, be entrepreneurial, and keep growing.
So they are the. They’re our core values. And we measure people on those.
We like to talk about it and all that. Different conversations we have. We hand out awards every bi monthly at a monthly barbecues just to encourage people to think about how they are aligning themselves, their core values.
And this is not just something that an opinion power does. This is. All of Nepean is measured by these cultural values, which I think is a really cool thing to have.
But it’s great because it sounds like it’s something that’s not just on a piece of paper, but something that you’re actually living and breathing as opposed to. I think some companies, once again, will put their values out there, but won’t really reflect back to them. So, yeah, I think so.
I think you’ll go to an european manufacturing site and they’ll have their values plastered everywhere throughout the workshop, floors, office spaces. And people mention it to the point where our customers feed it back to us as well, and they hold us accountable to them, which I think is a really cool thing to happen sometimes in a negative way. But it just shows that they’re going to hold us accountable to our own values, which I think is really powerful.
Yeah. And I think having it as NDNA is a pretty cool catchphrase. It is a very cool catchphrase.
NDA. It gets thrown around everywhere. Yeah.
Awesome. Is there anything else you’d like to share with us around leadership or life in general? Yeah, at the leadership academy the other week, we did a little piece on Coach prime. It’s a mini series on Amazon at the moment on Dion Sanders.
Yeah. And there was a line in that that he used which resonated with me, and it was, if you’re at home, be at home. If you’re at work, be at work.
Your mind should be where your feet are. I love it. Which I thought was a very powerful sentence because very often in our careers, in our life, we bring our work home and we shouldn’t bring our work home.
You need to be able to be at home when you’re at home. Yeah. And when you’re at work, do your best to leave your home life at home.
Yeah. So you’re engaged wherever your feet are. Yeah.
I just thought it was a. It was a brilliant piece. Simple but effective message.
Yeah, I like that because I think, you know, it’s about being present in the moment. Yeah. And I think with, you know, technology were often, you know, distracted by phones and devices, so.
Absolutely. And it’s. It’s so easy to be in a meeting but not be in the meeting, especially with, you know, digital communications on teams and so forth.
You can look present but not really be present. Yeah. So it’s just really good advice to, you know, wherever your feet are.
That’s where your mind should be. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing with everyone about Nepean power.
No worries. Thank you for having me. Really appreciate your time.
Cheers. Thank you.
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