Leaky building repairs solution

During the past few years, Doug Owens has had his head down writing a technical manual, graphics and all, for his solid plaster cladding system used in new houses and in leaky building repairs.
The all-in-one cavity wall cladding system is awaiting Department of Building and Housing (DBH) accreditation before it is launched nationwide in the New Year.
"The system is just like the good old days but better," said Mr Owens, who has specialised in developing new building products.
"The market became dominated by fibre cement board and polystyrene and the billion-dollar price for that is leaky buildings. Our system is solid."
His company, Rimpac, has been developing the system during the past decade and it has gone into houses in Tauranga, Auckland and the South Island.
It is delivered as a total package to the building site - "we control every component of the system and thus maintain quality assurance", he said.
The plaster is pumped on to a mesh sheet on battens and is an alternative to 21mm stucco cladding.
Sub-contractors still mainly applied plaster as thin coats by hand but "our system can be pumped over a wider area of the external walls, making building more efficient and leaky free", Mr Owens said.
"The project with DBH has taken eight years and I'm ready for a new challenge. We all deserve a change."
And so it has transpired. Mr Owens, 56, was last month elected for the first time on to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council as one of four Tauranga constituency representatives.
The Owens name - he is the son of the late Sir Bob Owens, former mayor of Tauranga and Mount Maunganui over three terms (1968-77) - is back in the political arena.
"My children (six of them) are now grown up and I said to them the next 10 years is for me. They told me 'go for it, dad' and I want to do three terms like my father in local government.
"If he (Sir Bob) was around now, he would say 'good on you'. We are practical, hands on people; we are about ideas, implementation and results.
"He was my mentor, he believed in succession but he had a conflict with nepotism. That's why we never quite got it together.
"We were both volatile characters in those days and we didn't always see eye to eye. But he had a way with people; he was a manager of men and machines.
"At one stage, he had 2000 employees and was a colossus on the waterfront."
After growing up in Tauranga, Mr Owens strode off and joined the Merchant Navy, just like his father.
But that didn't last long for the independent Mr Owens and he returned to shore as a wharf foreman in Auckland.
He then went to Australia, worked in the iron-ore mines and studied photography in Adelaide. After that, he returned to Tauranga and worked at the port as a shipping agent before moving back to Auckland to run his father's container business.
Mr Owens "bailed from that" and set up the first Auckland-to-Christchurch direct trucking service with the Bower brothers, Colin, John, Robert and Kevin.
That was when he met Tim Shadbolt, who ran for the Waitemata City Council and became mayor in 1986.
Mr Owens, and Colin and John Bowers had formed Tim's Team and they were elected for one term on the Auckland Harbour Board.
Mr Owens also became the harbour board representative on the Auckland Regional Council.
On top of this, Mr Owens established an IT company in Sydney that developed a licensed workers compensation and rehabilitation system for New South Wales.
Mr Owens was on the Auckland Harbour Board the same time as his father in Tauranga, who was the chairman.
Before the harbour boards were corporatised in 1989, Mr Owens floated the idea to his father that the Auckland and Tauranga ports should merge.
"He raised an eyebrow, suggested I have a cup of tea and a good lie-down," said Mr Owens.
He remained in Auckland and immersed himself in the building industry, developing plaster and cladding systems including Hebel lightweight concrete - until 1999.
That was the year his father died and Mr Owens moved back to Tauranga to consolidate his family's business. He also did some contract plastering work and strengthened the Old Post Office building in Willow St.
After the sharemarket crash in 1987, his father had returned to his knitting and re-established the core business of the Owens Group; from Owens Investments, with a network of shipping agencies, freight forwarding and trucking services in every port in New Zealand and Australia, turning over $350 million a year.
In 2004, the Owens family sold their controlling interests in Owens Group, including the fleet of 300 trucks, to Mainfreight.
The Owens Services BOP stevedoring and marshalling business was later sold to the Port of Tauranga.
Mr Owens retained the family business's land and buildings in the industrial heart of Mount Maunganui. His family trust has interests in storage, coolstores and offices connected to the port.
Mr Owens returned to Auckland in 2005 but he continued to commute to Tauranga on business trips.
Now he will be spending more time in his home town to fulfil his regional council duties.
"We live in a world of ideas," said Mr Owens.
"I have to grasp the moment and go for it. There's all sort of things.
"My mate rang the other night and told me he had just been given a government grant to do some evaluation on introducing dung beetles into dairy herds to reduce gas emissions.
"Anything is possible."