Careers
Tony Ewels
I became involved in the irrigation
industry by default, having joined a
company called Stewarts & Lloyds
in East London in 1979, as a
counter hand. The branch manager
saw something in me and after 1
month I was offered a traineeship
with Stewarts & Lloyds on either the
engineering or the commercial side. Having grown up in
the country with pumps, pipelines and windmills, I chose
the engineering option and was trained by the Company
over a 4 year period, with courses and block weeks at their
in-house training facility in Vereeniging, interspersed with
practical training back in East London at the branch.
In 1982, I was given a bakkie, an old Topcon theodolite
and sent into the field to design and sell pump and
irrigation systems. I thrived in being able to spend a
large portion of my working day in the countryside, rather
than being stuck in an office. In 1989, I went on my
own as a one man show and battled along until 2001
when together with Louise Ross and a third partner, we
formed Amatola Irrigation, specialising in the design,
supply and installation of irrigation, pump and reticulation
systems. Our client base includes commercial farmers,
government departments, municipalities, and a broad
range of landscape irrigation, from the domestic garden
to golf courses and sports fields. We have branched into
water treatment and sewage systems, as well as solar
powered pumping and irrigation systems, with a total staff
complement of 10 people.
We grew the business to the point where we needed a
second designer, and discovered that there was an
absolute dearth of designers in the country. We took a
decision to train up our own designers and decided to
target school leavers who didn’t have the financial backing
to attend a university or college, but wanted to further their
education.
We approached our local technical high school and were
given permission to hold an information session for the
matrics, which was well received and from this chose 2
trainees for the following year.
The training involved all facets of the business, from
assisting with the installation of systems, to spending time
with the administrative staff in the office. This was followed
by the SABI Introductory Irrigation Design Course, a
period of 2-3 years gaining experience in the field, before
attempting the SNE.
We found that it is important to subject the trainee to the
full spectrum of activities within the field for a minimum of
6 months, to allow them to decide for themselves, if this is
the path that they would like to follow, before beginning
the expensive formal phase of the training.
We have applied this procedure over a number of years,
with one of our very first tr Z[