In 1996, Kinleith went through $330 million dollar expansion and I took on a role as a project engineer working with the engineering and construction company doing the rebuild. My focus was to ensure that the equipment that was installed in a way that it would be easy to operate and maintain. This role required me to travel overseas regularly to work with the engineers of the design company.

In 1998 I moved into a production management role as the Area Manager for No 6 Paper Machine. This role involved me supervising around 60 operating staff and coordinating maintenance operations along with day to day operations of the paper machine.

In 2001 I took on the challenge of moving out of the paper machines and into the Pulpmill where I became the Area Manager of No.1 Pulpmill and the Chemical Plant. It is a similar role to the paper machine but the processes are quite different with No.1 Pulpmill supplying pulp to the paper machine I used to run and the Chemical Plant producing deadly toxic gases through electrolytic processes.

One of the great things that I have found about Kinleith is that there is always something different going on, the challenges of a 24/7 continuous industrial process mean that you will never have the same day twice, you will never get bored. With Kinleith being a large site there are plenty of opportunities to move your career in different directions, maintenance, project engineering, operations, process control. Being part of a large international company (International Paper) means that there are also plenty of opportunities for travel outside of New Zealand for development or fact finding.