A New Zealand family’s forest contracting firm, which scooped three accolades at this year’s Eastland Wood Council Forestry Awards, was the first contractor in the country to initiate a drug testing policy. Source: Gisborne Herald
Drug testing is now mandatory for forest crews in New Zealand and Kuru Contracting Ltd director Ricky Kuru takes pride in this and other safety initiatives they brought in that are now standard practice.
“This was implemented by our own initiative and at least 17 years before it was even talked about internationally,” he said. “That was very hard,” he said.
“It thinned out our staff quite a bit.”
Kuru Contracting Ltd won the whanau award, excellence in roading, and Mr Kuru was also named the professional skilled person of the year — considered the supreme award — at the regional industry awards.
“It’s good to have recognition from my peers in the industry for the hard work done to achieve that award,” he said.
“It means a lot to me and to have my family by my side adds to it. I see it as a family team effort.”
Mr Kuru and his wife Leanne co-direct the company he started with his father Jack in 1997, which has a strong history in providing employment to family and extended family.
At the moment the company involves Jack, Ricky and Leanne, and their son and daughter Shane and Jasmine.
Forestry is the future for Gisborne and the community needs to wake up and realise the potential this industry provides for the district, Mr Kuru said.
“We get so much negative feedback about forestry but many people do not realise what it is contributing to the local economy.”
A lot of forest contractors also contribute financially to community initiatives through sponsorship and donations to local schools and sports clubs and teams, he said.
“We sponsor as much as we can and I know a lot of other contractors do too.”
Originally from Porangahau in central Hawke’s Bay, the Kuru family is an example of a successful Maori grassroots business — working their way from labourers to bosses.
“We came from nothing, just workers in the industry. Which goes to show that if you set goals, the sky is the limit — as you will achieve it if you work hard at it,” said Mr Kuru.
They relocated to Gisborne in the early 1990s to work in forestry as part of the Dewes Contracting crew, which included scrub clearing, logging and road construction work.
An opportunity came to set up their own crew and they took it.
Kuru Contracting now involves three generations of the family.
“We started with seven crew members and in four years time at our peak we had 90 staff including five logging crews and three roading crews in forests on the East Coast from Patunamu through to Te Araroa,” Mr Kuru said.
“In the past decade we’ve scaled back to one logging crew and one roading crew.”
Fifteen of those employees were relatives, but that was not to say they got any preferential treatment.
“The opposite applies, as I think we have higher expectations of them because they are family.
“You can speak more frankly and openly to family. On the other hand one of the hardest things is having to sack a family member because they don’t meet the standards — whether it is drug and alcohol issues or not turning up for work.”
Two years ago Ricky and Leanne Kuru bought out Jack but “nothing has changed, he still works full-time,” they said.
The move was just to take some of the pressure off him so he did not have to worry about the management side of things, Mr Kuru said.
