PNBHS Old Boys Association — Dec 13, 2023

Check out where these old boys are now and what they are up to...

SEAMUS BARNETT (2009-13) is back in Auckland after three and a half years in Dublin. He has commenced a new position as a Senior Solicitor at Buddle Findlay.

ANDREW OWEN (2009-13) is the CEO of Moonward Apps, a company he founded in Brisbane in 2015. Moonward are a design-led app development company with more than 100 apps successfully built and launched, trusted by startups and enterprises including Olympia, Steppen, Instaband and more.

Andrew says,”It all began with one app in a small town in New Zealand. That one app gained some traction, but it did something more important. It introduced us to a lot of businesses who wanted their own apps, we had the skills and the market had the demand. We became the app guys.”

JUSTIN HOWE (1988-92) is the Supply Chain Manager for lower North Island outbound and transport at Foodstuffs in Palmerston North.

GOWER BUCHANAN (2001-05) while completing a law degree at Canterbury University Gower started his working life as a real estate agent in Christchurch. In 2010 he moved to Auckland to work with the Ray White Damerell Group team.

Now as one of the company directors, Gower leads and supports a team of over 100 salespeople, property managers, body corporate managers and support staff across three offices.

BEN JAMES (1992-96) Has left the Army after 26 years and is now a Regional Golf Development Officer for Manawatū/Whanganui Golf.

BILLY BURNLEY ( 2006-10) was unable to get a visa extension to continue to work at Cypress Point and Lake Nona Golf and Country Club in Southern California and is now home and working as the Assistant-Superintendent at the new Tom Doaks designed course at Mangawhai, Te Arai Links North Course.

BLAIR ARGYLE (2005-09) is the Owner/Operator of the Beaver and Bear, a Canadian-style restaurant in Featherston Street, PN, opposite Central Normal School - worth a visit.

MICHAEL JENSEN (2006-10) is a teacher at Kiwitea School where he teaches Years 4-6. He is also the staff representative on the school’s board.

HAMISH SUTHERLAND (1977-81) was for 23 years the General Manager of Farmer Brown – a brand of Mainland Poultry who were the first egg producers in New Zealand to offer colony-laid eggs to customers throughout the country.

He is now the Business Owner of Wedgerwood Joinery in Alexandra.

BRUCE ADAMSON (1990-94) Has joined the staff of the University of Glasgow School of Law as a Professor of Practice, specialising in children’s rights and human rights.

BRENT IMRIE (1987-91) is a group travel specialist with his family company Tour Time Group. They have recently been acquired by Inspiresport, a global business. They are the industry-leading sports development tour operator.

Brent will remain as the Managing Director of Tour Time group. The company was started by his parents Ron and Beryl in Palmerston North over 30 years ago.

MYLES HOULAHAN (2003-07) has left the New Zealand Defence Force after serving 11 years as an officer with the Army and is now an Assistant Manager with KPMG in Wellington.

His roles in the army included being a senior instructor in maintenance support, Aide-de-camp to the Deputy Chief of the New Zealand Army and Deputy Director of Land Engineering.

DR JACK O’BRIEN ( 2003-07) graduated from Massey University’s Veterinary School in 2012. He spent 12 months at Randwick Equine Centre in Sydney completing an internship before returning to New Zealand. He worked in the lower North Island and then in equine practice near Auckland. He began his current position with the Waikato Equine Veterinary Centre, Matamata, in 2015.

Jack has an active and very keen passion in the NZ thoroughbred racing and breeding industry, having a long-standing association through his parents and grandparents. On any given Saturday you will almost always find him somewhere near something broadcasting Trackside. He has a special interest in racetrack and performance horse practice, especially lameness, performance medicine and diagnostic imaging.

MATTHEW BROUGHAM (1976-80) is a Senior Global Consultant for Certara Evidence and Access In Ottawa, Canada. He has been in Canada for over 12 years. After initially working for the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health as Vice President, Product and Services, he then established his own consulting company, which he continues alongside his current position. 

Before he left New Zealand he was the Chief Executive for Pharmac for five years.

MICHAEL ALLAN (1977-81) has been the Sales and Marketing Manager for American company Medtronic Spine and Biologics in Auckland since 2007. Early in his career he had worked for Glaxo in both Auckland and London.

BRUCE CASELEY (1960-63) is a committee member of the Golden Shears. This year’s Golden Shears brought up 50 years of volunteering for Bruce and he received a special badge to mark the occasion. Like a lot of volunteers, Bruce came from a Young Farmers Club and even though the age of retirement from the club is 30 he didn’t let that get in the way of volunteering at the Golden Shears. Bruce was brought up on a farm near Masterton, had four years at College House, and has worked in farming since the early 90s and tutored for eight years at Taratahi (a farm training farm).

He also sold and managed life insurance, worked for the Wairarapa Times-Age selling rural advertising and spent half of every year for about a decade driving trucks in Texas for silage harvests.

He started work at Golden Shears tipping sheep. “Tipping” involves turning the sheep once they are shorn, so the judge can assess the quality of the shearing. As well as tipping Bruce has registered entrants, calculated shearing points (with a team of six) before points for the shearing were computerised, calculated points for wool pressing and wool handling events, been committee members, been treasurer, run the yards, edited the programme, worked the bar and helped the crutch the sheep before they go to the Golden Shears to be shorn. Whew! That is some contribution.

He still gets involved for the pleasure, the people and the buzz. Bruce has many good stories to tell, like foreign exchange students entering novice events and having a great time.

JAMES “JIMMY’ FARQUHAR (2004-08) is the and CEO of GeeGee App and based in Amsterdam, Holland. GeeGee stands for ‘Good Game” and it is a feeling of accomplishment and a sign of good sportsmanship. GeeGee is designed to encourage a revolution in sports. Jimmy founded the company in 2020.

A keen sportsman himself from a young age (he played over 100 games for the 1st XI Hockey) and a sports fanatic, he understands the benefits that sport provides, not only physically and mentally but also in other facets of life. However, participation and interest in sports are declining especially at youth level. So the question quickly became how do we make it more relevant? Sport, as we know it, can struggle to fit into everyday lives. There are various barriers including cost, getting to the location, time and lack of fun. It is also now easier the ever to sit on the couch, especially with the rapid rise of digital gaming.

Therefore, Jimmy (GeeGee) thought why not bring sport to the people through a medium that they understand, something that is low barrier to entry, easy to pick up and play. The revolution of sports is what he calls “micro-sports”, sports involving mini-games that require activity.

GeeGee meets the digital generation on a platform where they can create, play and share microsports. It is a place for having fun and healthy competition. Communities around the world are redefining sports and fitness and Jimmy wanted to create a platform that truly celebrates that.

GeeGee combines all the best of sports and gaming hoping to give people a reason to geo off the couch and get involved.

All the best to Jimmy on this innovative venture.

JOHN BOLTON-RILEY (1964-67). The spirit of aviation runs strongly through the Bolton-Riley family. John, now a retired farmer and businessman achieved many records in his microlight. He was the first pilot to fly a microlight aircraft both ways across the Tasman. He set records in speed over recognised distances in the 500-600kg microlight class. He also had six world records in the 400-500kg class. Of particular note was his 26 hour, 2,200 mile flight from Feilding to Aldinga in South Australia. John has been a longtime active member of the Manawatu Aviation Club and is their Chief Flying Instructor. One of his other interests is conservation and care for the environment.

SAM BOLTON-RILEY (1990-94) is living in Lyall Bay, Wellington with his wife, Andrea and two children.

Sam has been a helicopter pilot for 23 years. After finishing a BSc from Canterbury University he completed his helicopter licence and moved to Australia flying in the cotton spraying and fire fighting industries. Sam has travelled extensively with his job including Canada and India which he considers to be his highlights. This included conducting underslung helicopter operations for resource companies (as an example he was conducting a geophysical exploration for uranium in India for the Indian Government) but also firefighting throughout Australia and Canada.

Sam was fortunate to have his brother, James, as a colleague for many years. Sam and his family moved back to New Zealand in 2016 to take on a job with Life Flight flying the Wellington Westpac helicopter. For Sam, this role was challenging but extremely rewarding and enjoyable. In 2019 he resigned from Life Flight to work for HNZ (Helicopters New Zealand) to fly on their offshore oil and gas contract out of Broome in Western Australia. They fly 21 seat helicopters (Sikorsky 92s) under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) in all weather, supporting clients at a major gas field about 250 nautical miles north of Broome. A few years ago HNZ was purchased by a Gulf of Mexico based organisation called PH1 Aviation. Sam is now the Senior Base Pilot (Manager of Base pilots) at their Broome base and a captain on their search and rescue helicopter. They have around 50 pilots rostered to the base. PH1 fly Sam from Wellington on a 21 days on/21 days off roster. Sam enjoys his job and loves the challenges associated with it. One of the advantages of his job is that he never stops learning. Sam is sent to a flight simulator in either Stavanger, Norway or Farnborough, United Kingdom, every six months to be put through his paces with every conceivable emergency and scenario…..as Sam says it is called the “Humbling Box”.

JAMES BOLTON-RILEY (1994-98) also has a strong aviation background. First flying helicopters in New South Wales from 2002-06. He moved on to flying a Hughes 500 as a Tuna boat pilot on shipborne fishing operations throughout the Pacific Ocean. His next challenge was in Canada and based in British Columbia where his role included operations related to forestry, oil and gas, medivac and work for the Ministry of Environment. Operations involved winter flying (down to –30 degrees), confined areas, mountain flying and long lining. In 2011 James was based in Australia and carried out operations in Australia, India, Japan and East Timor. He was primarily flying underslung operations as well as fire fighting, power line surveys, precision lifting, winching and medivac.

James finished helicopter flying in 2016 and moved to Gisborne where he worked for Bayleys Real Estate as a rural sales specialist before becoming a director of NZ Real Estate specialising in farms, forestry, horticulture and life style blocks across the greater East Coast region.

GARY PHILLIPS (1967-70) has semi-retired. He works seasonally for Live Stock Improvement collecting milk samples from herd testers. A former 1st X1 Hockey player who has had a long association with the sport as a player, coach and administrator, he is still heavily involved with the College Hockey Club in Palmerston North. Gary’s wife Helen is the Attendance Officer at PNBHS. She is also a very keen hockey follower. Both Helen and Gary can be seen on the sidelines watching their grandchildren’s sport.

ANDREW PHILLIPS (1992-96) lives in Eastbourne, Wellington. He is co-owner of MTF Finance in Mt. Victoria, Wellington. Andrew was Captain of the 1st hockey XI in 1996 and played 1st XI cricket. He is still involved with hockey, coaching the Hutt Premier men’s team and plays masters hockey.

WARREN PHILLIPS (1996-2000) lives in Palmerston North and has his own building company (Phillips and Co Builders). Lucas, his oldest son, is Year 10 at PNBHS and plays both hockey and cricket. Warren has only just recently stopped playing Hockey due to injury and is coaching the College Hockey Club’s Premier team and the Manawatū Men’s team at this year’s national tournament. He plays masters hockey when injury allows.

Andrew and Warren’s sister, Sheree played many games for New Zealand.

Cruden Family Ceremonial Bag Pipes. These pipes were gifted to the school by DONALD (1944-46) and GORDON (1947-51) CRUDEN in 2004. The gift also included a collection of “Ceol Beag” music and a book on the history of the bagpipes. The pipes originally belonged to their father Neil Cruden who arrived in New Zealand with his parents from Scotland in 1905. Neil was taught piping at an early age and by 1930 had been the Pipe Major of both the New Plymouth and Hawera Pipe Bands. He was a member of the Manawatū Scottish Society Pipe Band, when in 1938 it won the New Zealand B Grade contest thereby obtaining promotion to the status of A Grade. Donald Cruden continued the family involvement with the band.

In later years Neil Cruden devoted most of his time to solo competitions, judging and teaching pipers. He assembled a fine collection of bagpipe music and recordings. He died in 1945 when he was the Chief of the Manawatū Scottish Society.

The pipes are played regularly by the school’s bagpipe tutor, including at this year’s school ANZAC Service, Stuart Easton, who is a world-renowned piper in his own right. Through Stuart’s enthusiasm and teaching skill, the number of pipers in the school are growing and hopefully will follow in the steps of well-known Old Boy pipers Stewart McKenzie (1988-02) and William Rowe (2005-09). Stewart is the Pipe Major of the Manawatū Scottish Pipe Band which in August this year was placed 9th in Grade One at the World Championships at Glasgow Green. Stewart has been part of the band since he was 10. William Rowe (2005-09) is the Pipe Sergeant for the band.

HAMISH CUMMING (2001-05) is a freelance electrical and software engineer in Nelson. He specialises in advanced distribution management systems, modeling and protection. Hamish has a Bachelor of Engineering with honours in Mechatronics Engineering. He was an engineer with MainPower NZ Ltd before going out on his own. He was Dux Litterarum in 2005.

Congratulations to MATT THOMAS (1995-99) and STAN FRASER (2007-11) on being appointed as Justices of the Peace in Taihape, February 2023

MATHEW HYLAND (1995-97) has his own fencing business in Whanganui, HCG Fencing Ltd. Check out his work online, it looks good.

ALASTAIR CARR (1997-01) studied Mechanical Engineering at Canterbury University and has worked in Wellington, Canada and Brisbane. He is now in Queenstown, starting a New Zealand office for the engineering firm he worked for in Australia.

NATHAN TAIKATO (1998-02) is the Managing Director for Kirimana Consultants Ltd, a Māori/New Zealand owned and operated recruitment consultancy specialising in sourcing and recruiting for the construction and manufacturing industries across New Zealand and Australia. Nathan studied at UCOL in Palmerston North before joining the recruitment industry.

JACK RAINEY (1998-02) is the manager of the anonymous koha hit restaurant “Everybody Eats” in Wellington, a pay-as-you-feel community restaurant. It was featured on the TV 3’s AM Show during the year.

Jack is a trained chef from way back. From hotels to cafes and being a private chef to a diplomat, Jack has seen a world of food. Now as the manager for Everybody Eats, he is on a mission to turn imperfect and unwanted food into world-class meals.

JOSH CLEAVER (1990-92) is the Operations Manager for the Devon Hotel in New Plymouth. The Devon is owned by Peter Tennent (1972-76), the former Mayor of New Plymouth.

LIAM GILTRAP (2011-15) is the Finance Manager at Warrendale Farms Limited, Pocklington, Yorkshire, England. Warrendale Farms are livestock breeders.

REGAN HOPKINS (1986-89) is a Senior Consultant for Allen and Clarke in Wellington. Regan has an MBA and specialises in change management, business case development, management consulting business, business transformation and operating models.

SHANE DYER (1983-86) is the upper North Island Technical and Sales Manager at De Sangosse. Shane’s industry experience has been in horticultural business development, business management, technical consultancy, horticultural science and nutrition within the horticultural industry.

Shane is responsible for horticulture and agriculture business development, sales growth and technical crop nutrition advice for De Sangosse, a leading supplier of innovative crop nutrition and protection systems in the upper North Island.

RICHARD PRINT (1953-57) is a retired Chartered Accountant living in Palmerston North. With his wife, Grace, they attended this year’s Business Alumni Presentations.

COLIN PRINT (1978-82) a Chartered Accountant like his father, is the Chief Financial Officer of SMX- who are email cyber security specialists. Colin is responsible for the commercial and financial management of the company.

STUART PRINT (1983-86) is the location manager and funeral director for Lychgate Funerals in Wellington. He was a share milker when he left school and was a church minister before moving into funeral directing.

LEE SIMPSON (1980-84) is Speirs Group Limited’s Chief Executive Officer and Company Secretary. He has held these roles since 2008. Lee is a chartered accountant of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand as well as a Fellow of Governance.

BEN GILMORE (2007-11) is a General Practitioner at the Orbit Medical Centre, Grey Street, Palmerston North.

For those who watch TV One News, most nights you will see the United States Correspondent LOGAN CHURCH (2013-14).

BRYCE CURTIS (1979-83) is a Weta Workshop costume designer. He has done set work on movies like ‘King Kong’ and costuming for the ‘Hobbit’ films. He is also a puppet maker. The school still has the puppets he made for the show ‘Off Broadway’ which Chris Burton directed in 2000. His talents have also extended to designing provincial rugby mascot costumes eg. Wellington’s Leo the Lion, Northland’s Taniwha and the original Steely Dan costume for Counties Manukau. You can see many of his creations, satirical political puppets in the Backbencher Gastro Pub near Parliament Buildings in Wellington.

The person who first wore Bryce’s Leo the Lion costume in 2016 was NATHAN LEWER (1984-88). Altogether, he wore the Leo costume for 21 years and Captain Hurricane for 12 years. His trademark salute was copied by the Hurricanes when they score a try. Nathan’s favourite part of the job was making children smile.

Nathan has five children and owns his own bouncy castle business, Awesome Bounce. He has 19 blow-up castles for hire at his inflatable jump park. In his spare time, he has worked in financial markets at the Reserve Bank. He is currently a change and adoption lead where he shapes and improves operations teams by identifying business efficiencies, facilitating change through a structured change management framework and unlocking key drivers for the most important part of any business, its people.

Many of you will remember Nathan as an outstanding athlete at school.

IAN DACRE (1981-85) is a veterinarian and emergency management specialist. Ian graduated from Massey University in 1991 and worked in Scotland for five years before leaving to work in Morocco for an equine charity. Based there he also worked in Mali, Tunisia, Jordan, Syria, Kosovo and Albania. After five years in Morocco he returned to Scotland to complete a PhD in Equine Dentistry. He returned to New Zealand in 2005 to work for the Ministry of Agriculture and Massey University as a lecturer in equine dentistry. Ian was then approached by WSPA (World Society for the Protection of Animals) to help establish their ‘Global Disaster Management Network’ for the Asia-Pacific region based in Thailand. In 2014 he broadened his role with WSPA, re-branded as World Animal Protection, taking on the task of being the region’s Senior Veterinary Adviser and a year later, he took up a new role with the World Organisation for Animal Health in looking at how foot and mouth disease may be controlled in South East Asia. Ian was one of the few foreigners allowed into Myanmar, after a cyclone had ravaged the countryside in 2009, to help the rural people restore their domestic animal numbers.

Ian and his family recently moved back to NZ. He has a son at PNBHS, and is self-employed as an Emergency Management Specialist utilising his skills in project planning, disaster recovery, disaster response and emergency management.

Ian was the guest speaker at the 2023 PNBHS Year 13 Leavers' Dinner and it was fantastic to hear him share some of his experiences with our most recent Old Boys.

Keep in touch Old Boys, we look forward to catching up with you in 2024.

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