Reward for secrecy and planning when boat came in for port project

By PAM GRAHAM

Jon Mayson had no hesitation in nominating his biggest day in business.

It was the day four years ago when Tauranga took on Auckland - the day when Mayson, the chief executive of Port of Tauranga, announced the establishment of Metroport in South Auckland in a bid to attract containers to a regional port that was supposed to stick to moving logs.

Within a month the port announced it had a customer that provided 10 per cent of Auckland's business.

"It was the turning point for this port with respect to establishing the container terminal and getting a footprint in Auckland," said Mayson.

The satisfaction came from the fact that Port of Tauranga kept the plan under wraps for the 18 months it took to negotiate "and so many people said it would never work".

"If there was anything that was going to bring out the best in us it was being told we can't do something.

"The weeks following were probably the most fraught as we tried to get the systems operating."

At one point a staffer suggested it would not work.

Mayson replied: "If you say that then you start believing it. You have to believe we can make this work. We know it is going to work, we have put all the systems in place, now get out there and make it happen."

Metroport is now a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week operation that increased volume last year by 12.5 per cent to a record 322,516 containers of a standard size. Logs accounted for 29 per cent of the port's business last year compared with 40 per cent before Metroport.