Tim Isaacs was appointed general manager of Fitec Australia two months after the global finance crisis took hold around the world, something he described yesterday as a "sucker punch".
Mr Isaacs (51), formerly of Dunedin, found himself leading a moribund forestry industry training organisation in Queensland that seemed to be on a continual downward spiral.
"Obviously, we couldn't go on losing half of our clients every year. I decided to spend a lot of time with clients rather than in the office."
He now spends up to four days a week on the road, meeting clients, and has changed the focus of Fitec to being more customer oriented.
Fitec needed to find out what people wanted from training so it "seriously analysed" what it was offering to clients.
"If you are employing someone to go into training, you need to know where you want them to be in two years. We undertook some serious job evaluations and helped clients with candidate selection and potential and we train for that."
When Mr Isaacs started with Fitec two and a-half years ago, there were seven training qualifications on offer. There are now 16 qualifications available, right up to diploma level.
The global finance crisis meant last year there were no new trainees, so Mr Isaacs spent the year developing training products to take to clients.
At the start of this year there were 30 trainees. Now, there were 310 and if he completed a new training product before Christmas, there would be 350 trainees.
One of his proudest achievements was winning back clients who had left Fitec.
That had happened by tailoring the training to meet not only industry standards, but also the internal standards of clients and making the training relevant to the industry.
The training ranged across areas including timber processing, forestry and logging, sawmilling, framing and the newly introduced transport and logistics.
A large haulage company, which carried 1.25 million cubic metres of logs a year, and had never used professional training before, now had seven trainees in the transport and logistics course.
Because Fitec was an industry-owned association, its members were its clients, Mr Isaacs said. The board met three times a year. That helped in ensuring the courses met the needs of the industry.
"We are filling a niche, but it is hard work. To get training accreditation in Queensland is difficult. You have to go through some very tough audits. But we passed, which is a bit of a coup."
Clients ranged from small sawmills either a day's drive from the Buranda office, or even a plane ride, to Hyne and Son, which operated two of the largest sawmills in the state.
Hyne and Son trained all of its staff through Fitec. Staff were taken on for a 90-day trial period. If they continued after the trial period, they were put into a two-year training course after which they were assessed again.
Even if the staff did not continue to work for Hyne and Son at the end of the two years' training, they had something tangible in their hands to show future employers, he said.
While chainsaw training was still undertaken, the Hyne mill used ultrasound to scan the log and check its density.
The log was then "presented" to maximise the amount of timber that could be extracted.
"The use of technology in the go-ahead businesses is very high-tech."
While Fitec did not provide the specialised computer training now being introduced in harvesting and processing, it did tailor its training to national standard requirements, Mr Isaacs said.
There were still some problems within the industry, however. Building approvals were up 15% in September on the previous corresponding period. But at the same time last year, approvals were down a whopping 60% on 2008.
The timber industry was still in recession. While mining made the overall economic figures look particularly good, other industries, including forestry, were struggling, he said.
The thing that would change that was selling the story that the forestry industry was "greener than green". The major issues facing the industry were around the environment.
The forestry industry was logging sustainably and planting trees to use as a carbon sink, but the public's perception of the industry was bad, Mr Isaacs said.
No-one could see the mines, which were big holes in the ground, but forests were highly visible.
"We have a fantastic story to tell. We can push the carbon story and the growing use of technology in our industry. I am promoting the good story on environmental management."
Overseas expansion for Fitec was also on the agenda, with training being proposed in Papua New Guinea and Vietnam.
Mr Isaacs was in Dunedin to visit his family.
