Today Maffra Trenching & Boring Pty Ltd is a sizeable business, based in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley region, boring holes for a wide range of clients. It employs 20 people, including three of Mark’s sons, Robert, 28, Bill, 25, and Craig, 21.
Mark’s business acumen has been complemented by Vermeer equipment, which has assisted the company to achieve its successes.
Mark’s early start in business ownership was precipitated by the breakdown of a family business, ironically run by a father and three sons. “Like lots of family businesses, working together and being related didn’t seem to work, so the family went their own ways.”
Mark, who had just completed his apprenticeship with the company, had the opportunity to buy its Ditch Witch and boring equipment.
So in 1977, aged 21, he borrowed $17,000 and launched Maffra Trenching & Boring. He was married the same year and the couple settled initially in Maffra. His main work was gas reticulation, with hand borers, Grundomats and flexi-rods, transported in a box trailer and an old Valiant with roof racks.
In the 1990s, the trenching industry was “revolutionised with a machine that dived, turned and zigzagged and still came out on target”. Mark “had to have one”, so he “saved the deposit and talked the wife into mortgaging the house.” His commitment was “still a bit shaky”, but he saw the opposition moving into his area and “they were capable of doing in one day the equivalent of two weeks of our labour.”
So Mark began investing in equipment and now has three Vermeer directional drills and a P185 vibrator plough. The drills are “the baby” – a D7X11 – a D24X40 and a D36X50.
The majority of Maffra’s work is now gas reticulation, Telstra contracting work, water reticulation and mains and irrigation projects. Mark describes the D7X11 as “a little street machine”, used mainly for domestic water and gas connections.
The D24X40 is used for gas mains and Telstra frontage, that is, horizontal strips along roads. The D36X50, the biggest drill in Mark’s fleet, is used for bigger bores, including irrigation pipes. The plough is for water mains and optic fibre cabling.
Mark returns to Vermeer equipment because he likes the sales people, the back-up service, access to spare parts and “they don’t break down”. He says the salesmen are “a key”. They call in frequently, not just when he’s in the market for new equipment, and they enjoy fishing and a beer. “It’s good to buy from someone you know,” Mark says.
Maffra will continue expanding its fleet, particularly with “add-ons”, like digital tracking equipment that assists machine operators to achieve greater accuracy.
Despite his early experience with a family business, Mark has no qualms about working with three of his sons. The boys all completed motor mechanic apprenticeships, “to get some real world experience”, before joining their dad. Mark expects them to “lead by example”. They don’t expect to be treated as “the boss’s sons; they do the hard work”. Youngest son, Adam, 12, is a bit young for the trenching trade yet, “but we class him as a standby operator. Adam wants to work in the business, but I’d like him to do something different.”
Mark’s been thinking about a succession plan, but doesn’t yet have a firm idea on how to handle it. Each of his sons is “a great worker in their own right”, so there’s no fait accompli about who’ll be “the boss” when Mark decides to put his feet up. “My biggest task yet is to keep my boys together with the family business and this is my most challenging endeavour, although the most rewarding, on the good days.”
Maffra is based in Traralgon, but Mark’s team works throughout the Latrobe Valley. “We’ll go anywhere the money’s right.”
These days Mark doesn’t spend as much time digging ditches himself, he’s better at overseeing the projects. “I turn up when I like, the business pretty much runs itself; they’re good guys.”
The time will come when Mark wants to indulge in his love of fishing in the mountain streams and spend more time motorbike and horse riding and with his two grandchildren.
But Maffra Trenching & Boring will continue with another team of Hunts at the helm and Vermeer equipment to ensure they get the job done efficiently.