Growing up in the family business, Geoff Weaver, Managing Director of Interflow, had spent many school holidays at the company’s workshop familiarising himself with the organisation and equipment. He moved through different roles within the business while taking night courses in civil engineering, until 1990 when Geoff took up his current role.
”When I took over and started in the role,” Geoff explains, ”I had a reasonable knowledge of contracts and a broad understanding of business, but my first challenge was to get up the curve and understand the broader aspect of running a business. Fortunately, I had my father who mentored me through this and provided that guiding hand. If I did make a mistake, it was always a learning experience and nothing too disastrous. Early in that period, we made some strategic changes to the business, which meant a structured move away from the traditional pipe construction that is, digging trenches and laying pipes. One of my drivers was that the traditional work was quite tough with low margins and having to really fight for every job, so I was always looking for other ways we might do business smarter.”
“Not long after taking over, I got interested in trenchless technology as an alternative means of renewing pipes. This was a big change for the organisation because it meant we were no longer just looking at the traditional dig-and-replace approach. It didn’t happen overnight, and it meant that we had to invest in new technologies that weren’t readily available in Australia. Trenchless technology, when we started, was a relatively new thing. Having to embrace this new strategic direction, introduce new technology, and then win work was a very interesting challenge for the company.”
