30 Year Club – Standing The Test Of Time

The year is 1989. Bob Hawke is Prime Minister. Acropolis Now premieres on our small screens. Hawthorn claims the VFL flag over Geelong and Hutcheon & Pearce recruit two team members who have stood the test of time.

Spare Parts Managers Rod O’Brien and Lisa Schulz this year chalk up 30 years with H&P. Here they reflect on the big changes they’ve seen in their time with us.

When Lisa Schulz started at the Temora Branch of Hutcheon & Pearce in October 1989 her most important job for the week was driving to Coolamon to collect the pays, which came as cash in envelopes.

Temora born and bred, Lisa worked for a bank in Canberra before starting off with John Deere at a dealer in Lismore before moving on to dealerships in Brisbane and Caboolture and eventually back home to Temora.

“I started out as the junior admin and went into workshop admin, sales admin and then spare parts.

“What I like most about the job is that you just never know what’s going to happen each day. There’s quite a bit of problem solving – finding the right part for the job – but I find if you listen first and get as much information as you can, you’ll usually be on the right track.”

Rod O’Brien was just 16 when he started at Hutcheon & Pearce in Coolamon.

“I started on 20 March. Ted Hutcheon actually rang me on my birthday in early March to offer me the job and the rest is history.

“I started as an apprentice plant mechanic. I was on the tools, sort of just helping out all the main mechanics at the time, and then progressed through the ranks. I think it was 12 years as a mechanic before Vincent Leary – who has been here more than 30 years as well – approached me for a job in parts and I took that opportunity and started back at the bottom.

“I was the guy out the back just picking orders and doing errands and worked my way up to the counter and progressed into Spare Parts Manager about five years ago. I think it’s good that I came from a mechanical background, so I have that product knowledge, which comes in handy, and I’m happy to pass that on to the guys I work with.”

Both Lisa and Rod point to the emergence of new technology as the single biggest change they’ve seen in 30 years on the job.

“Technology and therefore the products we sell, the way we do business as a company and the way our customers do business has all changed,” Lisa said.  

“Part numbers used to be looked up on a fiche machine and then we’d place orders over the phone. You’d spend hours ordering over the phone. It was a great revolution when the fax machine came along! Now it’s all computerised and, yeah, it’s beautiful.

“I think farming used to be considered a lifestyle but now it is a business. Our customers are a lot more savvy, and the introduction of the internet etcetera has brought about enormous changes in the way our farmers think and the way they farm.

“It seems farming is a young man’s game now. Farmers are using GPS to accurately sow and spray their paddocks.

“And there is constant change and progression within our business. Hutcheon & Pearce is always looking to the future to see how we can embrace change.”

One thing that has remained the same is the family values Hutcheon & Pearce lives by.

“When I started here, I was single and I’ve since got married, had two kids, got a mortgage, bought a block of dirt, built a house. At one stage I was in hospital for three months and they supported me through it all.

“Hutcheon & Pearce is a company loyal to its employees. We’ve had droughts before, and I would see other organisations cutting people back, taking their hours to four days a week but that never happened with Hutcheon & Pearce. It didn’t matter who was at the helm, employees were treated well. They’ve supported me, so I support them.”

For Rod, Hutcheon & Pearce is more than just work.

“Hutcheon & Pearce is just like another family because your build good relationships with the people you work with and you help each other out. I enjoy seeing all the young kids come through starting from the bottom, thinking I was there once. If they apply themselves to the best of their ability, then the sky’s the limit.

 “We had our all employee meeting on 14 August, so every single employee from Hutcheon & Pearce was in the room, and it’s so good. You look around and there’s 270, 280 other people and you just know they’ve got the same feeling, they all bleed green, they’re there for the one thing, one big extended family.”