Saturday will be the 30th anniversary of the day Greg Berghan, then a brand new 17-year-old, started work at the Kaitaia Dairy Company store in Kaitaia.
He had fronted up the day before, on his birthday, to ask if he might have a job, and while a great deal has changed over the ensuing three decades his enthusiasm has never waned.
Having grown up on a farm at Takahue, he had decided that working in a farm shop wouldn't be a bad way to earn his living, he said last week, his career beginning "out the back" in the bulk store, working alongside Stan Julian.
"George Coulson was my first boss," he said, while Barry Maria and Peter Moss were there too, to pass on their years of experience.
The Kaitaia Dairy Company, which was on the corner of Commerce and Melba Streets (where Postie+ is these days), subsequently became a Town and Country agri-centre, then RD1, and is about to morph into a branch of Farm Source.
