• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

A Landlubber Who Loves the Port

Posted on: Thursday, 21 July 2005, 18:00 CDT

He's a landlubber who would rather go for a run than set sail on a boat, yet Martin Byrne is at the helm of Nelson's bustling port.

The 39-year-old has been involved in the maritime industry for 20 years, after abandoning a schoolboy idea to be a journalist.

Born and bred in Nelson, he had always intended to go to university to study journalism, after leaving Nelson College in 1983, but he never quite made it there.

Instead, he forged a career in the maritime industry without tertiary qualifications, working in New Zealand, Fiji and Australia, and is now the chief executive of Port Nelson.

In 1984, just two weeks before Mr Byrne was due to start studying at Canterbury University, he decided to take a year off. He took on some basic labouring jobs in Nelson and picked hops, before starting as a freight clerk at Union Maritime Services.

Before then he'd had no interest in the maritime industry. "I lived here through school and hardly ever went to the port.''

These days of course, it's a different story. "I love it,'' he said. "No two days are ever the same. It's a fascinating business to work in.''

After three years Mr Byrne became the ships' agent at Union Maritime Services in Nelson, before becoming manager in 1988. In 1992 he and wife Margaret set up their own Nelson shipping agency, Nautilus Shipping, which they ran for three years before Australian company Burns Philp Shipping bought their business and merged it with their own Nelson office.

Mr Byrne stayed on in Nelson to run the business, but after a year Burns Philp offered him the position of manager of its operations in Dampier, Western Australia.

When the Adsteam group bought out Burns Philp in 1998, Mr Byrne took on the position of general manager for its agency in Fiji, based in Suva.

At that stage the Byrnes had two young children, Emma and Kieran (later to become three with the addition of Kaylee). When the second Fiji coup broke out in May 2000, a volatile time with mayhem and riots in Suva, Mrs Byrne and the children returned to New Zealand. "It was a bit surreal, to be honest,'' he said.

Mr Byrne, armed with a laptop, commuted between the countries for work. While the family did not feel in immediate danger, they were cautious, and in January 2001 decided against returning to Fiji to live and moved to Adelaide, where Mr Byrne took on the role as South Australian general manager for Adsteam.

That year the South Australian Government privatised seven ports in South Australia, including the Port of Adelaide. Adsteam was a shareholder in Flinders Ports, the company which took over the seven ports, and Mr Byrne became general manager of business development for Flinders Ports, staying there until January last year when he took on the position of Port Nelson chief executive.

With 104 permanent staff, and 130 casuals it can call on, Port Nelson - an export-dominated port - is one of Nelson's largest employers. Rated seventh for export volume out of 13 significant ports in New Zealand, over the past two decades the amount of cargo the port handles has increased significantly.

Last year just over 2.5 million tonnes of cargo went through the port. A Berl report commissioned last year showed about $785 million of cargo went through the port in 2004, up from about $700 million in 2001.

However, with hard times in the region's pipfruit and fishing industries, the port expects a drastic slowdown in growth. In 2002 the port had expected about 3 percent to 4 percent annual growth. Today it predicts 1 percent yearly growth over the next decade.

The drop off in growth means the port has shelved a controversial $9 million plan to extend its Main Wharf South, near Wakefield Quay. It also means that while shipping lines will no doubt move to incorporating bigger ships into their fleets in the future, the port - which can take ships up to 225m long and 10.3m deep - could not justify spending the $80 to $90 million it would cost to cater for the larger vessels.

"You would need to have huge volumes of cargo to attract those ships,'' Mr Byrne said.

As ships get larger, a key challenge for the port will be managing its business so it can provide the best service possible for its customers, he said.

A busy port, operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Port Nelson has plenty of other projects to push on with and issues still to resolve.

In September or October it intends to lodge consent applications with the Nelson City Council to reclaim 2500sq m of land behind the Main Wharf South berth at a cost of about $2 million.

The port's Main Wharf North will also have to be upgraded in the next four to five years - a costly but necessary exercise to keep up with shipping movements, Mr Byrne said.

A huge issue currently facing the port is that of the noise it generates, and Mr Byrne said interacting with the community was a key element in working through that.

Mr Byrne said it was crucial the port be able to operate continuously, so its challenge is coming up with a proposal which will allow it to do that while also giving nearby residents a reasonable night's sleep.

To do that, the port is developing a draft variation to the Nelson City Council's resource management plan, modelled on Port Otago's flexible noise management system which allows noise threshold lines to move depending on port activity.

"We have to be reasonable about what we do but I think it needs to be a bit of give and take.'' Mr Byrne is proof that success can come without tertiary education. While he would have loved to have studied finance at a tertiary level, he said running his own business was one of the best things he had done to boost his career.

Halfway through a three-year contract, Mr Byrne said he and his wife moved back to Nelson to give their children some stability, and they're keen to stay longer. "I'm loving the job. We'd see ourselves here for a few years yet.''

--------------------

Source: Nelson Mail, The

More News in this Category