Success means risk taking as well as commitment and hard work.
McMillan Drilling Ltd is Canterbury's largest drilling company. Based in Southbridge, 50km south of Christchurch they drill water wells, conduct exploration drilling, environmental and industrial drilling and provide water analysis and laboratory services.
It's quite a different company from the Southbridge blacksmith business founded by TT (Trevor) McMillan in 1947. Then the business was centred on the maintenance and repair of farm and agricultural machinery with the 'smithy' also adept at driving 50mm bores 15 to 30 metres down into the stoney Canterbury plains in search of water.
Trevor's business developed with the local farming community and by 1963 when son Lyell joined the family business, TT McMillan Engineering Works, had a solid reputation as 'the' service firm in the Southbridge and Leeston district.
Lyell and wife Val saw an opportunity to grow the drilling business, and in 1976 bought this aspect from Lyell's father.
Today McMillan Drilling is a successful business with 10 drilling rigs of various sizes and more than 30 staff, drilling all over Canterbury, the South Island, and occasionally into the North Island and South East Asia. From 50mm bores 30m deep they can now drill up to 600mm wide bores and to several hundred metre depths with 600 horsepower Air Rotary Drills.
However the water well business was not all plain sailing. The turning point from a local firm that helped bore your water well to the expert 'Driller of Choice' in Canterbury is vividly etched in Lyell's memory. It was 1982 and demand for irrigation water and irrigation equipment was strong. McMillan Water Wells had plenty of orders in it's book, but drilling wells was a somewhat risky and time-consuming business with the available machinery. "Often we would get to within a few metres of where we'd expect water and damage would stop us continuing and the only option was to start again." The standard procedure was the 'Cable Tool' method - drive bores into the ground and hope you do not damage the casings before you hit water.
Lyell and Val started searching for a faster, less risky, but still cost effective method. Travel to Malaysia, Thailand, United States, and the United Kingdom convinced them that the answer was Air Rotary drilling.
The hard part was convincing the Banking fraternity that the numbers stacked up to purchase this expensive equipment and that Lyell's market projections were not misjudged. Lyell is notably reticent when discussing his success:"It's a demand thing. We were led by the demand for water. Sure we made a huge financial commitment back in 1982 - I'd do it again if I had my time again, but boy it was a big call?..no, not a decision I would want to make today! What we saw was demand for irrigation west of the Main South Road and decided to go after it with the right equipment. And, hey it worked!"
Steadfast support from family and staff, the backing of the now defunct Rural Bank, and hard work getting to grips with the new technology enabled McMillan Drilling to develop from a local business into the expert regional company it is today.
Currently growth is in two distinct areas of the drilling business. One is the large number of farms converting from dry sheep to lush dairy farms. "Fifteen years ago, if you said they would be milking cows in the Te Pirita region (west of the Main South Road, north of Rakaia River) they would have locked you up and thrown away the key.".
The other area of growth for McMillan Drilling is diversification. Diversification into Geo-technical and Exploration drilling such as core analysis to ensure safe construction of roads and bridges. "When I started working I needed a solid practical grounding. Nowadays we need to be technically strong too. The technical and theoretical demands are much greater. We have a Geo-techincal engineer, a Geologist , and a Chemist on staff and a IANZ accredited water analysis laboratory on site."
Lyell appreciates Parry Field as a pragmatic and solution focused firm. In truth we think Lyell pragmatic, practical approach, and straight up and open talking may have rubbed off on us
