Inventor Tom Hayes has a revolutionary mind that's stuck in overdrive. Photo / Stephen Parker
Inventor Tom Hayes has a revolutionary mind that's stuck in overdrive. Photo / Stephen Parker 230519sp3.JPG
Jill Nicholas
Jill Nicholas speaks to the dinkum oil inventor oiling industry's wheels, creating life-saving devices, whose revolutionary mind's stuck in overdrive.
Tom Hayes may be staring 90 in the face but his mind continues to buzz and whir at breakneck speed. He's an inventor, not of the mad professor cogs and wheels brain spinning variety or the "she'll be right No 8 wire" Kiwi joker.
He's the dinkum oil, a man who knows instinctively how to make things that work better and faster than anything that's gone before. Heavy machinery for the building and forestry industries is his speciality but he's a gadget man too.
When a relative's hands developed an uncontrollable shake he came up with a device to stop her scalding herself making a cuppa.
That's small fry compared with the revolutionary planer machines, log loaders, forklifts, aluminium sheeting and iron roll forming machines that have come out of his head – that's just a taster of Tom's diverse talents.
He doesn't tolerate flops. If something doesn't take off he re-jigs it.
What started out as a revolutionary cabinet for rapid growth agricultural grass morphed into one nurturing broccoli sprouts. Ground, they're used in cancer treatment.
The now Aussie-based company's gone public with Tom a major shareholder.
He's been in the invention business aeons, as a 10-year-old, his war effort was building and selling Morse code sets.
Leaving school at the end of Standard 6 (Year 9) his ambition was architecture "but ours was a poor family, I knew they couldn't afford it so decided to get as many skills as possible".
He delivered bread on a bike, cut up fish for a fish and chip shop - "I learnt to eliminate the bones, I've done that all these years for my family" - made and repaired saddles, tried his hand at boot making.
Like any teen he wanted a car – he didn't hang around car yards (not that there were any in dem distant days), he built his own scavenging components from scrap dumps.
"Twenty eight makes and models went into that vehicle, it cost me eight pounds [$16]."
A car was fine and dandy but a working man couldn't earn a living with it, Tom converted it into a truck, heading to the new mill settlement at Minginui.
"I'd never heard of the bloody place but because of the truck I got the contract to do the fencing, concreting around the house, building steps."
He was 18 and that heart of gold of his was already well developed.
"With their men at work, there was no way for village women to get to the nearest shop at Te Whaiti. I'd take up to 20 of them on the back of that truck. Crikey, it would be a pretty poor world if you can't help out to that extent."
Minginui's contract completed he joined Fletcher's team building Kawerau's Pulp and Paper Mill. Spotting the wastage involved in cutting roofing boards his inventor's mind hit top gear.
"Over the Easter weekend, I made this time and labour saving machine, delivered it the next working day, my boss reckoned it saved up to 120,000 pounds. Sir James [Fletcher] drove into the yard in his Rolls [Royce], he didn't even get out, just handed me a cheque for 20 pounds. I was so stunned I walked away, drove to Rotorua and got a job in a timber yard."
Coming up with a new method for end matching floorboards, he rented a dirt-floored shed from the yard's owners to build it in. That shed was the birthplace of his manufacturing business, initially operating under the banner of Timber Engineering Coy Ltd.
He lived in a yard bach "getting flooded out every year".
It was his home seven or eight years before his first marriage. Tom's not as hot on timeframes as he is at inventing.
As the business expanded Tom bought a block of Karaka St land where he built his self-designed machinery.
The company's can-do reputation spread.
"One night I got this call from a chap interested in our timber cutting machine. I thought he said he was from Gisborne, I said I'd come and see him tomorrow, he gave me his phone number, he was in bloody Sydney."
Undaunted, Tom left Rotorua for Auckland at 3am, caught the 8am transtasman flight, selling his machine twice over.
"This guy was so impressed he introduced me to his competitor who ordered one too. I was home on Sunday the proudest flying Kiwi you've ever heard of. That was my first trip overseas."
It was also his first export venture, what's now Hayes International services customers across the globe.
Locally the Lockwood home building company became a major customer.
"I designed and made all sorts of machines for them. Joe La Grouw senior and John van Loghem became great friends, I learnt a hell of a lot from these senior gentlemen, ended up buying Lockwood's Tauranga franchise."
Somewhere in our all-over-the-place conversation, Tom drops in how he came to create the flagon washer that hit national headlines.
"In the days of 6 o'clock closing guys would take empty flagons to the pub for refilling, there was no guarantee they were clean."
Tom developed a flagon-specific sterilising machine, selling them nationwide.
Having barely put a dent in his business ventures we turn to his family life. His second marriage was to Sheila Robb, their union spans 54 years. Sheila came with a ready-made family of two, three sons followed.
"I'm from a family of six boys [including an identical twin brother], decided we weren't any good at making girls so adopted our beautiful daughter."
To him family is everything, eclipsing the long tally of awards his various businesses have won. In 1995 Hayes Engineering was named Rotorua Business of the Year. There's a swag of other accolades, national and international.
In 2000 he was invested as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to industry.
To say he retired at 70 is a blatant lie. Tom can't help himself, he sees a potential problem and conceives how to conquer it. A classic example's the Gorilla Safety Grill he produced when a toddler died after falling into an open manhole.
A buggy recycled from a mobility scooter to ferry rubbish bins up and down what's possibly Rotorua's steepest driveway followed.
When a hurricane ravaged Tonga last year Tom made a machine to straighten out the bent and battered roofing iron left in its wake.
His latest project's on the drawing board, it's a flat pack coffin.
Not that Tom has plans for departing life any time soon. His energy levels remain set on overdrive.
The secret of his success?
"I've never considered myself smarter than anyone else but accept I've been blessed with a flair for inventing . . . that's life, you do what you enjoy."
About
Tom Hayes MNZM
Born: Shannon, 1929
Education: Shannon Primary-Intermediate
Family: Wife Sheila, adopted son (deceased stepdaughter), three sons, one daughter. "About 12 grandchildren and four or five greats."
Interests: Family, business. "I just love developing things to keep my mind occupied, it keeps me young."
On his life: "It's been very, very enjoyable doing things to help improve people's lives."
On Rotorua: "It's a great place, I've never been tempted to take my business out of town."
Personal philosophy: "I haven't got one."
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