Former Aucklanders Adam and Trisha Blair set up Cyber Consulting in Palmerston North

The Blair whanau - Trisha, Adam, Alex, 8, William, 11, and Charlotte, 8 months. Photo / Judith Lacy

Adam and Trisha Blair had been saying for years they should move to Palmerston North.

The pandemic gave them the push they needed and they arrived from Auckland in January 2022.

They set up Cyber Consulting, providing networking and network security infrastructure.

The Blairs wanted a change from Auckland and most of Adam’s family had moved to Palmerston North over the years. He is originally from Timaru while Trisha is from Auckland and still has family there.

Trisha says they were coming down once or twice a year to visit family and friends and kept saying they should move here. Thanks to the pandemic they had become used to maintaining virtual relationships with Auckland whānau and friends and decided to take the plunge.

Adam says they wanted a quieter pace of life. Palmerston North is a nice city to move around, the people are friendly and it is easier to buy a house; they were renting in Auckland.

Growing up in Timaru he biked everywhere with friends and got up to mischief. He wants that same freedom for his three children.

Bookworms is their “hobby business”. They sell secondhand books online, thereby rescuing them from landfill. The couple enjoys talking to people about books and both love reading.

The Blairs are looking at ways to recycle books they can’t sell, such as turning them into furniture or compost.

“We love books and we think there is so much value in them but sometimes we don’t have space for them,” Trisha says.

After he left school, Adam joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force and relished the training, travel and study opportunities. He was based at Ōhakea for five years.

It was a great career but after 12 years he decided to experience life outside the air force and got a job as a network engineer for a managed service provider. Trisha offers a layperson’s definition of a network engineer - they make things talk to each other.

Google tells us a managed service provider (MSP) is a third-party company that remotely manages a customer’s information technology.

Adam says think wi-fi, printer cables, security threats, firewalls, and ensuring the network is behaving optimally.

He always wanted to start his own IT services business as it would allow him to make his mark on how an MSP is run. He enjoys working with business owners and staff to make their job easier, taking the pressure off so they can focus on their core business rather than worrying about the IT side.

Building partnerships is an important role of an MSP - understanding a client’s business, being involved in their success and helping them when something goes wrong.

Trisha says her husband is not a typical IT guy. Adam says people skills are one of his strengths. “It is about people, how do you make someone’s job easier?”

The couple met while training for a charity boxing fight night in Auckland. They were both boxing newbies and during their three months of training sparred against each other. Both won their bouts on the night.

Trisha had a 13-year career in banking including as a branch manager.

Adam is passionate about helping people develop their own IT careers and hopes in time Cyber Consulting can provide a pathway for people to get into the industry.

It is quite well-paid but people struggle to know how to get into it or don’t think they can, he says. Plus, there are stereotypes about the age, gender and ethnicity of IT professionals.

Adam is impressed with the collaborative way businesses operate in Manawatū, saying ManawaTech has been so helpful and the industry-led non-profit organisation is an asset for Manawatū.

Adam is also impressed with the events the city council puts on and the focus on sustainability.