Malcolm Bates Talks Waste Handling Equipment with Frontline Machinery Expert : Getting Personal – Mark Gover on Waste Management Equipment in New Zealand
There’s much more to the New Zealand economy than bungee jumping, tourists and sheep – as a conversation with Mark Gover will confirm. But you’ll need to be quick, because he’s got a new product line to tell his customers about.
Mark Gover is based in Auckland, New Zealand, and has the challenging job of selling and servicing specialised equipment working in extremely tough operational conditions – much of which is manufactured on the other side of the Planet.
With beautiful scenery and low levels of pollution levels that the rest of us can only dream of, New Zealand is a holiday destination paradise, but it would be true to say that behind the laid-back approach to life ‘down under’, New Zealanders are working hard to keep this unique landscape as free from pollution and further degradation as possible. But ‘Mother Nature’ sometimes makes that job even harder and there have been several recent cases of earth tremors and flooding that have put added strain on the infrastructure and local authority resources.
Most days then, we’d expect to find Mark out on the road, or if a visit to New Zealand’s South Island was called for, in the air – visiting customers, demonstrating new machinery, or placing secondhand trucks, plant or machinery with a new customer.
But today, we find him in the Northern Hemisphere, in Grimma, Germany. Once part of a massive Soviet tank factory back in the days of the DDR (the Communist German Democratic Republic), today the huge assembly halls are the headquarters of Faun Viatec – the vacuum sweeper division of Faun GmbH.
The connection? Aside from selling new Clayton Vallely vaccum tankers, jetters and hydro-excavation equipment – and running a thriving business selling
secondhand kit – Frontline Machinery has recently been appointed the distributor of Faun Viatec sweepers in New Zealand. It seems that ‘vacuum’ is a keyword in the range of products supplied by Frontline, but other types of trucks aside from tankers are also supplied.
Finding Mark deep in conversation on the finer points of vacuum sweeper design with his German colleagues in Grimma is testimony to how language need not be an obstacle to global trade, provide there is the will to do business.
Gover says he is looking forward to getting Faun Viatec sweepers into the highly competitive vacuum sweeper market in New Zealand, which is, like that in Europe, made up of both local authority operated units, as well as those operated by owner/drivers and contractors.
“Although operations in New Zealand might look much like those in Europe, we have a number of local requirements and conditions that have to be met,” Mark explains.
He is especially keen to show potential customers in New Zealand the ‘added value’ potential of Faun machines with high-pressure spraybars using hot water and rear suction/squeegee systems. “They are ideal for cleaning aircraft stands at airports, or chemical and oil spills in industry and add to the utilisation of the machine”, he confirms.
Just think, with tourism being such an important part of the New Zealand economy, a Faun Viatec sweeper supplied by Frontline Machinery Limited could be the first thing you see when stepping off the plane at Auckland airport. Now you’ll know how it got there.
