Peter Hewitson is handing over his company's reins to partner Gary Edwards - just as it prepares to export.
They manufacture Firenzo wood-burning heaters in Napier - and Napier is where the business will stay.
"One of the conditions was that the company would never leave Napier - I have loyalty to the staff," Mr Hewitson said.
The company plan to export to Australia, where there is strong interest in the technology behind their range of 17 heaters.
Their sales manager Steve McCarty is also undertaking a feasibility study of exports to Britain.
Mr Hewitson said their market advantage was thanks to New Zealand's low emission standards.
"The regulations here are the toughest in the world. That gives us a market edge in Australia - they are toughening up.
"We have always complied with updated regulations and are constantly submitting our heaters - tweaking them here and there."
He is confident his second attempt to crack the Australian market will be more successful than his first.
After emigrating from England with his fiancee Ellen in 1959, he found himself bonded to an employer in Wellington.
"I had to come to New Zealand as a single person because I didn't have a trade and there was more scope as a single person - even labourers could come out if they were single.
"We got married five months later but I wasn't too happy with Wellington.
"We had friends in Napier - you make good friends on the boat on the way over - they said to come to Napier for the holidays.
"So we came to Napier, loved it, and we applied to the Immigration people for a transfer - there was plenty of work in those days."
He picked up sheet metal skills at Rothmans, before becoming self-employed as a window cleaner with a government contract.
"I also started commercial cleaning and in the end we had 19 staff. It was very demanding with long hours seven days a week.
"I sold out to Allbrite cleaners in the early 70s and got a job with Downers, working on the sheet metal for the building of Pan Pac.
"I met up with a couple of other guys and we decided to open a sheet metal shop in Napier.
"We were in Milton Rd and continued doing installation work at Pan Pac and also the fertiliser works at Awatoto. We had enough work to get ourselves established.
"After three years I got interested in wood burners. There was an energy crisis and the DSIR research institute had an Austrian who had come up with plans for a wood burner using secondary burning.
"The drawings were available free to the public to take further."
That design became the basis for the Lady Kitchener range of wood burners available today.
"It has been our most popular heater for 25 years - it's a stupid name - the thinking was woman folk could use it for cooking, hot water and a heat source."
But their road to success was thwarted. "We started exporting to Australia. We were over ambitious, naive, green.
"We went over to Aussie and met a guy who said, yes I like these - I'll take 2,000.
"I was the driving force, so I take responsibility.
"We borrowed $100,000 from NZI Insurance - a lot of money in those days - on the assumption we were going to sell 2000 to Australia. We ended up selling 200.
"For some reason they had a factory fire and that contract went. There was already strong competition on the local market and we had bits of pieces of componentry for another 1800 heaters and we went into receivership. I'm not proud of that."
Most of the 1800 heater parts were sold as scrap.
In 1986 he bought two welders and the plans for the Lady Kitchener heater from the liquidators and went out on his own.
This time he built up the business slowly, making only Lady Kitcheners for six years and selling them himself, expanding his outlets one region at a time.
"It's seven days a week and it's long hours.
"My wife will tell you that - I'm never home."
Today he has 22 staff and sells heaters from 130 outlets from Invercargill to Kaitaia.
Capacity and quality has taken a jump, thanks to Dannevirke company Metalform welding their core heating units, using robots.
He said while his partner Gary Edwards was the driving force to export, he would concentrate on research and development.
He said he has no plans to retire, despite his 77 years.
"I enjoy working and am still involved in development. It's a profitable business and we can see a great future."