He first imagined the Southland + Otago Regional Engineering Collective in 2017 when he arrived in Dunedin as CEO of Farra Engineering, a company with a 160 year history.
Seeing the common issues faced by engineering firms in the region, including a shortage of skilled labour, Gareth began thinking about collaborative solutions.
‘‘I felt that if the whole sector was starting to struggle, it was best for us to work together,’’ he says. ‘‘I went out and found other people who were willing to try something a bit different.’’
With some government funding and support from local MPs and members of the engineering community, it took well over a year of work from the steering committee before SOREC was launched in late 2019. Over $7 million in business capability grants were facilitated during this early period, as well as the establishment of the SOREC Academy.
While the initial concept for SOREC was to attract engineering work to the region, it soon became more about creating a pipeline of skilled labour to meet the demands of the existing industry.
As a result, the Academy was launched, as a gateway for young people into the engineering industry, and developing them to fit its specific needs.
‘‘When we were doing the feasibility study, we quickly realised the constraint wasn’t the market, it was the labour force,’’ Gareth explains. ‘‘So we pivoted pretty quickly. That required building deep relationships with schools so they would trust us to look after their kids.’’An important step was the appointment of James Bracewell as SOREC Skills Partnership Manager.
‘‘The main thing was getting someone onboard fulltime who could really drive the skills and apprenticeship pathways,’’ Gareth says. ‘‘Having someone committed to that has made all the difference.’’
Another game changer has been the more recent partnership with Business South. After proving that the SOREC concept was strong enough on its own merits, the organisation considered who could help them grow the model during its next stage.
Business South CEO Mike Collins says it made perfect sense for them to team up for the benefit of the engineering sector in the region.
‘‘SOREC were doing a lot of great work around advocacy, training, events, and networking,’’ he says. ‘‘Business South did a lot of that already, so I thought through economies of scale we could work in partnership to provide those services with SOREC.’’
The partnership began late last year, with SOREC’s administrative functions being supported by the Business South team. Gareth Evans has joined the Business South board, while James Bracewell now works with the team based in the Dunedin office.
‘‘Being based in the office enables James to work together more closely with our apprenticeship programme, and other programmes we support,’’ Mike says. ‘‘They’re now organising events and collaborating a lot closer than would have happened if this partnership hadn’t come together.’’
On Thursday April 18, the SOREC Summit 2024 will be held at the Trades Training Centre in Dunedin. The second such event that the organisation has held, the summit will focus on future proofing manufacturing and engineering companies in Otago and Southland.
Because of the timing, Mike says this publication is a great way to highlight what is going on across the south in those industries.
‘‘The whole rationale behind it is really to showcase all the amazing stories,’’ he says. ‘‘It is hard sometimes to get people to open up and tell their story, but we wanted to give them a platform to speak about their experiences, the challenges and the great achievements. And to celebrate the whole engineering and manufacturing community.’’
