INDUSTRY PEOPLE
Sweet Success
Rob Sweet helms Jonel Hydraulics, a hydraulic cylinder servicing
and repair business in East Tamaki, Auckland.
How he came to the world of cylinders is essentially through
a love of engineering, something he happened upon back at
Massey during his horticultural science degree.
During that degree, there would be offered a couple of ‘once
over lightly’ engineering papers where you’d learn about
pumps and hydraulics but only in theory, and as he calls it,
“it was a dipping the toe in” approach.
After the degree was complete, he found himself at the
DSIR, then subsequently as a ski instructor in Colorado, then
hanging off a helicopter for the Department of Conservation
at Aoraki Mt Cook.
A business degree completed led him to the broadcasting
sector and he even worked on that iconic television show
Wild South which ran for some 10 years.
But engineering is where it is at for Rob.
On the company website, you need to keep scrolling to find
his bio details in the Our History & Team section. He’s not
interested in any kind of ego trip. The high point of being in
the business, he says, is seeing his staff master a new skill
and evolve to the point where there isn’t a single thing they
don’t know about hydraulic cylinders.
He’s clear on the company focus, which is to remain at
the forefront of specialist hydraulic cylinder servicing and
repairs.
That’s one division, anyway. Across the four company
divisions—cylinder service, hydraulic repairs, tool hire and
the authorised ENERPAC service centre—the company can
undertake a range of tasks pertaining to hydraulics.
Launching bridge sections over the Ongarue River as part of a major KiwiRail infrastructure project. The custom-engineered steel bridge
launching nose was developed in partnership with Downer and Jonel Hydraulics.
This is a monthly series on businesses in our industry. We profile one business per month to find out how our hard-working
business owners, employees and contractors manage to run these specialist businesses and what makes them tick in the
New Zealand trade business environment. These are the stories of our CAM people.
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CAM July 2019
67