After 27 years, John Munro and his Southland Locator Beacon Charitable Company has become the largest personal beacon hire agency in New Zealand, helping more than 800 rescues during that time.
His service and dedication to search and rescue was acknowledged last night with a Gold Award in the support category at the 2022 New Zealand Search and Rescue Awards in Wellington last night.
Mr Munro was overwhelmed by the honour.
"I am very humbled and embarrassed, really.
"I was just talking to a friend about it and, you know, I’m just doing my job."
The idea first came in 1994 when a German man was found dead near the Hump Ridge Track after a three-and-a-half-day search.
He remembered the incident cost about $385,000 and involved 100 people scouring bush.
This incident spurred him and other members of the community to find some sort of solution as there were a lot of people who went out into the wilderness and became lost, injured or even died, he said.
"So what we thought was — if we could save one life, then this whole project would have been worthwhile."
In 1996, after a public meeting, the Southland Locator Beacon Charitable Trust was formed and Mr Munro became its chairman.
It became the first personal location beacon hire agency in New Zealand and since then has grown rapidly.
Mr Munro said they started off with a grant from the Community Trust of Southland of $260,000 which allowed them to buy 260 locator beacons to be hired out in five outlets.
Today, the company had about 550 units to rent across 89 places, he said.
"We were looked at as the new kid on the block ... As time went by, we proved ourselves and improved our worth and our reliability within the search and rescue sector.
"And the fact [is] that using one of these beacons, it could save 80% of the cost of a search and possibly save a life."
He said they had more than 800 rescues in the past 27 years.
"And I would say, conservatively speaking, 10% of those 800 probably would not have made it if they had not had a beacon."
The future for his company and for the personal locator beacon looked quite strong because it helped to save lives and also saved millions of taxpayer dollars, he said.
Mr Munro felt pleased to be able to work with something he was passionate about as well as helping the community.
"It’s such a shot on the arm to be recognised for something that you do that you enjoy."
