KEY POINTS:
Robert Stewart
Chairman Skope Industries
* Officer of the Order of Merit
* For services to manufacturing and the community
* Age: 66
* Family: Wife and three children
* Home: Christchurch
Robert Stewart, chairman of Christchurch manufacturer Skope Industries, was thrilled to be made an Officer of the Order of Merit for his services to manufacturing and the community.
It's an award that surprised him and one he wants to share with his 400-strong workforce.
"I think the whole point of the honour is that they would be pleased that the head of the company is recognised as Skope and they are part of that and their families are part of it," Stewart says. "Everyone contributes to it."
Stewart, 66, who left school at 15 to become an apprentice electrician with the Ministry of Works, has spent most of his life in manufacturing.
When he was 25 he took a loan from his father and bought a controlling stake in a small company called Robat Avon Industries. Over the years he acquired all the shares, repaid his father and grew the business into an established maker of commercial refrigerators and electric heaters.
"Nearly every shop you go into has got a Skope refrigerator."
His biggest competition is from re-imported second-hand Skope machines, he says.
Stewart is a member and past president of the Canterbury Manufacturers' Association and speaks for a sector he says is a critical part of the economy.
"I believe that research and development should be tax deductable in the early stages which was something I campaigned for and achieved. Now I'm campaigning to have it at 150 per cent deductable as it is in other countries.
"I believe we should have accelerated depreciation on new plant and equipment that creates wealth.
"These sort of things are considered old fashioned but we haven't been doing them for years."
Another challenge facing New Zealand was an environment where people sold their businesses rather than stuck it out. "We don't hold on to things or we don't encourage the holding on to them.
"I think it's cultural - but why?"
Stewart has always had a passion for design and at 32 was the youngest member of the 1974 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee. Overseeing everything related to design was his job. "Colour TV came in 10 months before the games started and for the first time ... everything was in colour.
"I created the first concept of colouring the uniforms, the tickets, the doors, the street signs in one colour subject to the sport."
Stewart was a founding director of Radio Avon, was made a Fellow of the Institute of Management in 2003 and has been active in community organisations including the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation and as a Trustee of the Christchurch City Art Gallery.
