Surveyors join global group

READING the lay of the land has just got easier in Wairarapa.
Adamson Land Surveyors has now joined an international consultancy business, the Australian-led Cardno Group, bringing skills from the world stage to aid development in the region.
The Wairarapa survey business, founded by Phillip Adamson in 1991, joined national group Truebridge Callender Beach in 2003, becoming Adamson TCB, and TCB's new partnership with Cardno this month gives new access to top international talent and technology.
Adamson TCB has been involved with several high-profile projects in Wairarapa, most recently a residential subdivision at Palliser, a development that has taken years to get approval.
Wharekauhau luxury resort, which Adamson TCB is now helping with further development, was "our flagship" project, Mr Adamson said, and the company has surveyed some very large forestry subdivisions.
Besides survey work, Adamson TCB is involved with engineering, and the preparation of resource consents for the district and regional council.
They are tendering for the Riversdale Beach sewerage scheme and manager Mike Shaw said the company may be the only Wairarapa-based business with the resources to pull it off.
The merger gives "really good access to resources", including top-end, highly-qualified staff, and also "more recruiting power" to attract good engineering staff to Wairarapa, Mr Adamson said
Mr Adamson said Cardno might be working on "a $200 million resort in Dubai, and we take the skills from that into a $2 million development in Wairarapa".
Mr Adamson admits it "hurts a bit", to be losing his name from the business "my baby", but "it gets a bit messy otherwise".
From small beginnings as a newly-qualified surveyor in 1991, Mr Adamson has seen his business grow to its current size of 10 fulltime staff, three of whom are surveyors from Wellington.
When Mr Adamson linked with TCB in 2003, the business which had trained him, he became one of six directors, from six offices throughout New Zealand.
After a few years we (TCB) got to 100-odd people and it was difficult to grow," Mr Adamson, "because of funding issues associated with growth".
Linking to an international company was a way "to strengthen our position in New Zealand as well".
One of the attractions of Cardno as a business partner was the consultancy group's twin fields of engineering and "social infrastructure", Mr Adamson said.
"The cultural fit was very important to us."
Cardno is involved with social fields such as schools, or feeding camps for refugees, projects that are "very low profit and based on Government".
"You have people who know how to feed lots of porridge and people who know how to build camps.
"Put the two together you can get the contracts."
From Cardno's point of view the attraction of TCB was that it was "provincial and loyalty-based, not just large project-based", combined with "a very low staff turnover", Mr Adamson said. "We have no intention to break that mould."
Mr Shaw said Adamson TCB, while it is changing its name to Cardno TCB and going global, will still have a local focus now combined with new opportunities to grow.
"It's at least business as usual."