Hard work and company misfortune was fortunate for his career.
"We had quite a large fire in Whakatu that destroyed the engine room," he said.
"It gave me the opportunity to work in the development of the software to automate the engine room which was really fantastic project.
"The project was very successful we then moved on to process control - the first meat company in New Zealand to develop a weighting and grading system.
"We worked with an Australian company to develop a lot of the hardware and I wrote the software. I did that here in the evenings at home because I didn't have any time during the day - I was busy managing everything else."
He said he received a general business education at the meatworks, becoming conversant with financial and accounting systems.
CFO David Campbell "really took me under his wing as a young buck and made sure I really understood and shared all his knowledge with me".
The meat company's computing expertise was provided to other meat companies through its subsidiary HBMC Computer Services.
"We ran that very successfully and profitably for about three years. In the last year we operated we made a bigger profit than the meat company."
Conscious of the business being vulnerable due to its reliance on him, in 1983 he put a proposal to distance the company from the meatworks and hire skilled staff "which we weren't able to do within the remuneration restrictions we had with the meat-company framework".
With the meat industry facing consolidation the board turned his proposal down, but instead offered to support him in the venture through a two-year contract.
"So I had a major client almost immediately and that allowed me to take all the ICT staff that I wanted over to IMS."
Building the businessThanks to a strategic partnership with United States company Unisys, IMS went from strength to strength, picking up contracts with New Zealand's biggest government departments.
After five years a Hawke's Bay location and the bulk of work being in Auckland and Wellington, working life was an increasing "hassle".
"Staff who wanted to work with us in Hawke's Bay didn't really want to jump on a plane on Monday morning and spent a week in Wellington. We did extremely well out of that but decided to relinquish the opportunities in that area.
"So that's when we came back to Hawke's Bay and said 'what we do now?' That's when we picked payroll as an application we felt we could do quite well with in the late 1990s."
IMS had already developed payroll software packages for Datacom, New Zealand Rail and Unisys.
"Unisys came back to us and said, 'You have done a great job for us in writing this, would you like to buy the product back off us?'"
IMS wrote versions for multiple software formats and found success through a network of 200 resellers and "clipping" its software to other developers' accounting solutions.
He is aghast at software failures such as the Education Ministry's Novopay contract. IMS spent $50,000 adapting its system for 700 schools, during the bulk-funding of schools, with no issues.
"I should probably touch wood, but we have never had a failure in any of the software projects I have worked on. That is quite unusual because sometimes when you are working on the leading edge - or the bleeding edge as you might call it - you will have failures.
"Fortunately we have the sort of staff and processes to ensure we minimise the risk of having those failures."
With IT and management expertise he was shoulder-tapped by the government to join the Hawke's Bay District Health Board, but just 72 days into its existence the board was sacked by the Government in February 2008.
"Board and management weren't on the same page," he said.
The Government appointed a Governance Board and elected board members were reinstated.
He has since been elected to the board, leading it to successive budget surpluses as chairman and making it the envy of other district health boards.
He was also approached to join the board of consumer-owned lines company Unison, which he calls a "fantastic company" about to announce "some pretty significant stuff with our fibre".
He is unsure if the Hawke's Bay Power Consumers' Trust would consider 18 years on the Unison board too much for the chairman.
"We are in a very exciting space at the moment - looking at how we can turn the disruptive technologies into an opportunity. I am pretty keen to be part of the team through that."
He has steered IMS, the hospital board and Unison and somehow found time to serve on the Hawke's Bay Rugby Union's board for the last 17 years.
At last year's Hawke's Bay Sports Awards sports journalist Phil Gifford, described him as a "saviour of Hawke's Bay sport".
IMS has been a major sponsor of Hawke's Bay sports for more than 30 years and Mr Atkinson owned the Hawks basketball franchise for four years in the early 1990s.
His sale of IMS last week has made IMS' annual sponsorships to Hawke's Bay sporting organisations of about $300,000 doubtful after new owner, ASX-listed MYOB said the sponsorships reflected Mr Atkinson's personal interests.
"I see a benefit of living in the community that can have a smile on its face every now and then when the region is performing well and sporting events," Mr Atkinson said. "There is nothing better than sitting in on the grandstand of McLean Park and seeing all those faces as people enjoy the way we are succeeding."
Serving as Hawke's Bay Rugby Union's finance director, he said the region's public and business engagement was the envy of other unions - 25 sponsors paying $25,000 each for their name on a Magpie jersey with 750 attending a pre-match dinner last night.
"We are the only province in New Zealand that can do that. The Aucklands, the Wellingtons, the Canterburies, they can't get an engagement with the community to that sort of level. We have been doing that for years."
Time to sell The sale of IMS was well planned.
"I'm 65 now, so it's time to start thinking about the future - you don't know where your health is going to take you."
In September last year he sold 25 per cent to its new CEO Doug Jopling, who has held senior management positions with IKEA, KPMG and Virgin before coming to Hawke's Bay to be Farmlands' chief financial officer and company secretary.
When the farm supply co-operative merged with its South Island equivalent last year to form a $2 billion company, there was no shortage of opportunity but he was determined to stay in Hawke's Bay.
At the time of his appointment Mr Atkinson switched ownership of the upper-floor of the IMS Building to a family company and last week sold IMS for $9.7 million.
He is not the only person with a nest egg thanks to MYOB purchasing their payroll software company. In 2006 it bought Comacc from Steve Nathan, enabling him to establish Slavare Estate winery.
Accounting software Xero's CEO Rod Drury, a Hawke's Bay resident, said Xero was not interested in buying IMS because it had developed its own payroll system. He said the IMS team did "a fantastic job".
"It is another great example of a New Zealand software company that has made a good effort," he said.
"We are more than happy to look after MYOB customers who are already making contact about moving to Xero."
Mr Atkinson is taking stock of his business career but still has a full plate with his rugby, health board and Unison commitments.
He is on an advisory panel, to smooth the IMS ownership transition, but misses his staff: "You become a family - the whole company goes to the rugby, the whole company goes to the basketball."
The sale gives him his first opportunity for more personal time in 16 years. He will likely travel more, including visiting his only non-Hawke's Bay grandchild in Auckland.
"Once people know I don't have that same sort of commitment to IMS I'm sure there will be other challenges that come out of the woodwork."
Whatever he decides to do, his track record shows he will likely achieve.
"The key thing for me is to stick to your plan and deliver the results."
