Rotorua's Neville Nicholson retiring from Skyline Enterprises

Skyline Enterprises' long-serving employee Neville Nicholson retires this April. Photo/Supplied

One of Skyline Enterprises' longest-serving senior managers, Rotorua-based Neville Nicholson, is retiring in April after 34 years with the company.

During his career, Nicholson played a key role in growing Skyline Rotorua into a major tourism destination, contributed to the development of Skyline's luge cart and was instrumental in taking Skyline's Luge to global markets.

Nicholson began as Skyline Rotorua's chief engineer in 1983 and was soon promoted to the general manager's role – a position he held for 25 years.

Skyline Rotorua was then known as Skyline Skyrides and was a fledgling operation.

Nicholson played a major role in the original luge cart design and track in Rotorua, and has been active in the ongoing design, development and export of the luge product and system internationally.

"With a background in engineering, he could provide practical hands-on knowledge to our Skyline team, and was the driving force for continuous improvement of Skyline's technology as well as generating substantial worldwide exposure of the luge product," Skyline Enterprises executive chairman Mark Quickfall said.

During his tenure at Skyline Rotorua, Nicholson oversaw the construction of eight luge developments in Japan.

He has held the role of general manager international luge for the past six years, during which time he project-managed Skyline luge developments in Canada, South Korea and Singapore.

"Investing in people is one of Neville's strengths, and he was instrumental in helping to implement many leadership and recognition programmes at the Rotorua site," Quickfall said.

"It should also be noted that Neville put a large amount of his personal time and effort giving back to his local community through various boards and local body initiatives in relation to tourism and economic development.

"On behalf of the Skyline Enterprises board, I would like to most sincerely thank both Neville and his wife Alison for treating the company as if it were their own and investing a lot of passion into the Skyline family of products.

He looked forward to catching up with Neville to hear about future projects.

"I'm sure retirement won't quell Neville's thirst for adventure and innovation."