At just 24, Marton man Patrick Cronin has his sights set on owning a new cleaning technology business on both sides of the Tasman.
He discovered dry ice cleaning during a computer search and in 2008 imported the Danish technology to New Zealand. His Icetech New Zealand company bought the rights
to use and sell it throughout the country.
"The future of ice blasting as a process in New Zealand is all up to me, because there's nobody else doing it," he said.
Since 2008, Mr Cronin and his part-time helpers have travelled to clean in a South Island gold mine, in the Naenae subway in Lower Hutt and in the silos of a Fonterra factory at Kapuni.
Much of their work is in food factories, or to clear the charring off surfaces in buildings that have burned, so they can be repainted and repaired.
Dry ice blasting uses 3mm pellets made of compressed carbon dioxide, which hit the surfaces and dissipate into the atmosphere. It's good for hard-to-reach places, sterilises as it cleans and leaves no residues, Mr Cronin says.
He's now spending much of his time in Sydney, helping the new owner of equipment there with marketing and goal setting. But he said he ultimately had designs on the business.
"I will get the business up and running. At the end of that I will look to buy him out. If I had Australia, it would make New Zealand stronger."
The "few hundred thousand" it cost to buy the New Zealand rights was bankrolled by Mr Cronin's Marton-based father, Colin, who has had a petrol station and rental car and crane-truck businesses in the past. The father and son are also into motorsport.
"I guess you could say we will give anything a go," the son said.
