It's a long way from Dunedin to Prague — 18,171km in fact.
But that was the distance Mizen Automation founder Mark Hurley travelled earlier this month to find new suppliers and distributors to give customers better options and pricing for industrial automation hardware.
While at the ANEXPO 2024 conference in the Czech Republic, Mr Hurley and Singapore-based colleague Paul Stuart also picked up the Global Voyager award in recognition of the efforts the company made to connect with a global market.
"We were obviously delighted with the award and the recognition from our peers. For me, it was very special, to be from a small city in New Zealand but to find ourselves up on stage in Prague in front of global leaders from within our industry," he said.
It is just over a year since Mr Hurley decided to leave his day job in the power generation sector and focus solely on Mizen Automation, a business which he had run on the side from 2019.
Due to the growth over that period, he decided to concentrate on it fully. It is now a multimillion-dollar business with a team of five working from offices in Dunedin and Singapore. Customers include the likes of Fonterra, Lion, Carter Holt Harvey and Meridian Energy.
Industrial automation is the use of robotics, sensors and control systems to perform tasks traditionally done by human workers. Mizen Automation specialises in supplying industrial automation equipment and parts, filling a need in the market for competitive pricing and shorter lead times, he said.
It supplied current line and obsolete hardware to customers throughout New Zealand and Australia.
It also provided a repair service and was looking for unwanted industrial automation hardware from local companies. That was the part of the business Mr Hurley was most proud of; it meant faulty or unwanted hardware was refurbished and put back into circulation instead of ending up in landfill.
The company recently received a waste minimisation grant from the Dunedin City Council to help with the growth of that part of the business.
It was probably the main player in New Zealand for that now and growing increasingly into the Australian market, he said.
Irish-born, Mr Hurley met his future Kiwi wife in Melbourne while he was on his OE — "I’m still on my OE 17 years later," he said.
The couple, who have two children, previously lived in other parts of New Zealand but always wanted to end up in Dunedin.
They achieved that ambition several years ago and their intention was to "stay put" in the city, even if it made sense logistically to be based in the likes of Auckland.
"I’m not doing that. We want to live in Dunedin, I want to hire people in Dunedin and grow in Dunedin."
When his wife decided to study quantity surveying and began to spend many of her evenings studying he figured he should do something to keep himself busy.
"I like a challenge. For me, it’s not the money.
"I’m a sponge. I love to learn. I want to fix things, come up with solutions. That’s what makes me tick," he said.
His first week being fulltime at Mizen Automation was a strange feeling. His calendar was empty — he was used to it being filled with meetings — and it was all a little confusing.
"What do you do? How do you grow a business?
"I just started to investigate ways of taking it from where it is to the next step," he recalled.
He did not know about marketing or accounting but he taught himself and surrounded himself with good people, saying he was "very picky" about who he picked, and within six months, the business was "in a different place".
Mizen Automation endeavoured to be as sustainable as possible to help reduce its carbon footprint. It used paper for packaging so customers could recycle it and it reused packaging that it received. A percentage of profit was given to charity.
Spend time talking to Mr Hurley and the word fun comes up a lot and that was an aspect of both work and life that was very important to him.
"The majority of my life is about having fun. I’m having great fun, I think the team are having great fun."
When he first moved into the company’s office, he turned it into a "man cave".
He brought in his brewing kit, although he decided adding his drum kit would be "pushing it".
Beer was now brewed in the office once a month — "the smells are awesome" — and the crew played games in the office and watched big sporting events.
If Mr Hurley was shouting drinks, he made sure Mr Stuart did not miss out in Singapore.
After years of working under different managers, he had learned what made a good leader. Not a typical managing director or chief executive, dictating was not the style he chose, he said.
"I empower them to make their own decisions. If they get stuck, I’m there. You’ve got to reward them, celebrate the wins as well," he said.
Despite having known Mr Stuart for years — Mr Stuart previously worked for a large global company which was now a competitor — he only met him in person for the first time in Prague and enjoyed getting to know him over a beer while watching football.
Mr Hurley’s life was much easier now he had gone from two jobs to one and he had a better work-life balance. Being in charge of the business meant he could sign off whatever he liked — including the trip to Prague — although he acknowledged that the buck also stopped with him if things went wrong.
"We’re going well [but] you’re only ever one or two decisions away from it all falling apart.
"It’s the nature of a small company; the bigger you get the stronger your foundations are. When you’re small, you’re on a knife edge," he said.
Mizen Automation was forecasting continual growth over the coming years and would be hiring for new roles in its Dunedin office and it would eventually open a branch in Australia.
The aim in the next few years was to become the market leader within the New Zealand/Australia region.
That was achievable "if we make the right moves at the right times" and part of that was travelling to the likes of Prague "to stay ahead of the pack".
A former volunteer firefighter for seven years, Mr Hurley was now working towards his private pilot’s licence, spending every Wednesday afternoon, weather permitting, in the air.
"I’m very curious and have been since a kid, I need to know how things work. [The licence] is filling that need for me."
When the Hurley family moved to Dunedin, Mr Hurley joined the Mornington Football Club as a way to get to know people. For him, it was not about winning but if you were over 35 and still playing football, there was still a competitive element, he said.
