The Executive Club: CEO finds refuge from battle zone

Bay of Plenty Times

22 Jan, 2015 10:56 PM7 mins to read

Shane Dufaur has been chief executive of New Zealand's only salt producing and manufacturing company Dominion Salt since 2012. Photo / John Borren

Shane Dufaur decided it was time to end a 15-year international career in the oil and gas industry when his Kuwait apartment's windows were blown out by a misdirected missile during the Second Gulf War in 2003.

At that point, the Kiwi engineer was general manager of oilfield services in Kuwait for oil and gas services giant Schlumberger, which had given him his first job after graduation.

Kuwait was a major trans-shipment port for US military arms and equipment, his staff had been evacuated, he was accompanied everywhere by an ex-SAS bodyguard, and - despite the early US declaration of victory - he wasn't convinced the war was over.

"I didn't want to be there," he said. "It was the first time in my life overseas where I didn't like where I was working. I resigned and flew home."

For Mr Dufaur, who since 2012 has been chief executive of New Zealand's only salt producing and manufacturing company Dominion Salt, it was time to go back to his roots.

He grew up as farm boy on a coastal sheep and beef farm in Onewhiro, midway between Raglan and Port of Waikato. Although he loved the life, his mother convinced him shearing sheep wasn't for him, so he completed a bachelor of engineering (electrical and electronics) with first class honours at Auckland University.

"I was always taking things to bits as a kid to see how they worked," he said.

Mr Dufaur was recruited by Schlumberger, a leading oil and gas technology, project management and exploration company with a staff of 120,000 worldwide.

He began work as a trainee field engineer, initially in Japan, and then Indonesia, where he spent several years in various roles, including stints in Balikpapan (Borneo) and Sumatra. A succession of assignments saw him travelling throughout Southeast Asia to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, before being appointed station manager in Australia from 1996-98.

He was then made international training and development manager, a role that saw him shifting between the US and France. He took a year's sabbatical, which included study at London Business School, and was then appointed Schlumberger's product champion, communication systems, in Austin, Texas, for two years, before taking up the general manager role in Kuwait in 2002.

But after 15 years abroad as a nomadic expat, and facing war and turmoil in Kuwait, he felt it was time to go home. At the time single, he hoped to have a family and didn't want to find himself a decade down the line still moving from one two-year post to another.

"Schlumberger was a wonderful company," he said. "But New Zealand was always home and I felt that I wanted to go back."

Mr Dufaur relocated to Auckland and spent a year consulting on alternative energy and IT implementation. He was then hired as vice-president, personal and car navigation, of what was then Navman, which developed the Navman in car GPS among other hi-tech GPS-based products.

Don Jaine, partner in executive headhunters Sequel, who recruited Mr Dufaur for the Navman role, described him as bright, with a keen sense of what worked from a financial and operational perspective.

"Shane's a highly capable complex problem-solver," said Mr Jaine.

"What he combines is really good high level strategic thinking and problem-solving capability, with a hands-on pragmatic engineer's approach."

Mr Dufaur loved the team he worked with at Navman, and helped grow car navigation revenues substantially. But the company was acquired by US-owned marine manufacturer Brunswick, and he found himself unhappy with the direction the new owners were taking and resigned.

However, he did take away something of significant personal value from the experience, meeting his wife Glenda, who was working at the company as an executive assistant.

After putting in a year as chief executive doing a turnaround on plastics manufacturer Matip Technology, Mr Dufaur and his wife decided to relocate to Tauranga, her home town. He acquired Tauranga company Fork Truck and Loader in 2006 and spent the next six years building it up.

"It was a small company that was renting and fixing forklifts," he said. Leveraging his connections to capital, Mr Dufaur built the company over the next six years into one of the biggest forklift hiring and service companies in Tauranga, with a large leased fleet.

When recruiters for Dominion Salt came looking, Mr Dufaur was initially not interested, but they persisted.

By this time, although he had grown his company substantially through the recession, he was regularly working very long hours.

"I came home and told Glenda I had a job offer," he said. His wife made it clear she supported his return to corporate employment and suggested he sell the company.

He accepted the offer in February 2013, sold the Fork Truck and Loader company privately in March, and started with Dominion Salt in June.

Executive recruiter Don Jaine characterised Mr Dufaur as an authentic person.

"His real skill is he's got that really good big picture thinking, but a pragmatic approach to problems and he's also got a really nice way of delivering to people. He's a super guy."

A key goal centred on family

Shane Dufaur and his wife Glenda have two daughters aged 9 and 7.

He emphasised that establishing a stable family life was one of his key goals in returning from abroad.

"Living as an expat, you tend to treat your life as short term, you live your life differently," he said. "Here we have real roots."

The couple have a 10 acre block, and Mr Dufaur still shears a few sheep, but a lot less than in his days on the family farm where he grew up. He is a fanatical deep sea sports fisherman, keen on sailing and scuba diving, and plays guitar.

He is a motorcycle buff with a classic Norton Commando and a Harley Davidson, as well as two Hondas. He is also a qualified pilot for light aircraft and used to own a five seater plane.

Glenda recently rejoined the workforce and is administrator and co-ordinator of Tauranga City Council's Smart Growth programme.

"I have ideas and get things moving, but I need other people to make sure things happen," he said. "Glenda is highly efficient and she organises me and the family."

In it up to his neck - and loving it

Shane Dufaur says he is now "up to his neck" in salt, which is processed into a wide variety of grades for consumption, industrial and pharmaceutical uses.

Dominion Salt, with about 120 permanent staff, isn't his biggest management role - Schlumberger's Kuwait operations had some 300 staff.

"But I'm now passionate about salt and I'm intimately involved in all aspects of the operation," he said.

"I love learning new businesses. I've always had an insatiable thirst for knowledge on how stuff works."

Dominion Salt was founded in the 1940s by George Skellerup of Skellerup Industries fame, and is now jointly owned by New Zealand-based Cerebos Greggs and Cheetham Salt of Australia. It produces 60,000 to 70,000 tonnes of salt annually at its operations in Grassmere, Marlborough, much of it processed at an adjoining plant for domestic use.

In addition, it has a state of the art manufacturing facility in Mount Maunganui, which handles some Grassmere salt and also imports and processes salt from Australia, much of it refined by a vacuum process into pharmaceutical grade salt, which is exported to major markets around the world, especially in Asia and South America.

Mr Dufaur said Dominion Salt was notable for the loyalty and experience of its staff, which included two senior managers with almost 40 years' experience and others with over two decades with the company.

"Dominion Salt is one of the few iconic manufacturing businesses left in New Zealand," said Mr Dufaur.