In 1962 it was a small beginning: just the two of them and a small rented factory on Montreal Street. But by 1984, when Dave Down and partner Vince Procter sold the major share of Davin Industries, it was a multi-million dollar business with around 150 staff.
Luck ? Right place at the right time? Hardly. Hard work, toil and an understanding that a business partnership is effectively a "marriage".A working of the principle that twoare better than one.
"To make a partnership really work, you need to treat it just like a marriage", says Dave. "I often said to my wife Eddi, 'I'm married to you at home, but at work I'm married to Vince!' To succeed in partnership I think you need to be committed and work really hard on maintaining that commitment and the relationship."
Dave thinks another of the key reasons for their success was their complementary skills. Eddi, speaks of Vince's assertion that together Dave and Vince made one complete person. Vince's strength lay in people skills, the ability to instill confidence, and and maintain sales relationships. Dave is a logistics person. He worked out the best way to achieve develop an objective, managed staff, the shop floor, technical matters and innovations. He concentrated on getting the work out correctly and on time.
Davin Industries Limited built a niche as a contract sheet metal works for a wide variety of industrial manufacturers. The company made refrigeration units, power boxes, electrical panels, and is perhaps most well known to the general Christchurch residential consumer forits production of Kent Log fires.
With Davin Industries Limited up and running, Dave and Eddi found that they had worked themselves into a position where they were able to initiate some of their charitable aspirations. In the 1970's they set up a charitable foundation. Around the same time a remarkable chain of events resulted in them being an integral part of a team involved in setting up Living Springs Trust. They later spent six years as full time volunteer site managers at Living Springs.
Living Springs is a conference facility and farm sited picturesquely above Governors Bay in Lyttelton Harbour (about 546 hectares). Initially a bare hillside, Living Springs became a sought after venue for predominantly Church and Christian groups. Nowadays the operation has grown and diversified to offer full conference facilities to all, and now attracts many local companies and local authorities for team building and training courses. The largest segment of the client base is the target market - Christchurch Schools, which want to provide outdoor and adventure activities for their children at a price that the parents and school can afford.
Living Springs 20 permanent staff work with many volunteers to provide a variety of training courses. Facilities include various accommodation options, conference rooms, an indoor swimming pool, go-karts, trampolines, mini golf, bush walks and gloriousviews.
Dave and Eddi could have easily retired after the sale of Davin Industries. Living Springs demonstrates they are not ones for standing still. They are proving it again by moving back into the commercial arena, this time setting up a new company - Festiv? Limited with partner Kevin Beck.
Festiv? manufactures food display units used by cafes and cafeterias. The business fits snugly with their son John's own sheet metal operation. Eddi suggests John is proving to be a chip off the old block with more than a passing resemblance to the entrepreneurial spirit of his parents. John Down holds a head lease over a commercial property and sublets space to a variety of complementary businesses such as a Festiv? and a Powder Coating company, and a Tool Maker.
Success, Dave suggests, springs from, "Doing what you know well, and not getting distracted by making decisions more complex than they are". Talking to Dave and Eddi Down the lasting impressions are of down to earth pragmatism and a very strong commitment to partnership -partnership to each other, their business partners, fellow Christians, and partnership with society.
Parry Field is honoured to have provided personal and commercial legal services to the Downs for almost 20 years and to see their success in business and the community.
