Southpac Legends

Ken Holmes is a familiar name to many in the forestry industry for his work as a harvesting contractor. However, in the past decade he’s also gained a well-respected reputation for the trucking business he’s created.

Ken’s trucking endeavours started with one logging truck and grew to 120 trucks at one stage, servicing forestry customers in the central North Island and Northland. Today, Holmes Group has a head office in Whangarei and a fleet of 50 trucks operating around Northland.

“I bought my first truck off Noel Galloway from Murupara back in the `nineties, when we were still logging in Kaingaroa,” says Holmes.

“It was a Mack off-highway double, and ... ... 

Having spent over half a century carting on and around the notorious roads that cover NZ’s Coromandel Peninsula, ‘simply surviving’ is arguably justification enough for being a Southpac Legend. However, when you add to this an earnest desire to inspire young minds, a keenness to expand NZ’s driver network, and a heartfelt love of trucks, the true picture of Puriri based trucker Graeme ‘Gunner’ Wright of Graeme Wright Transport Limited, really begins to emerge.

Graeme says that it was his father that gave him the ‘Gunner’ nickname due to the fact that he was always ‘gonna do this and gonna do that’, and although he says that it was a moniker that he found initially ... ... 

If you’ve spent any time around the Tokoroa region and the forestry industry, Alan Forbes is a name you’ll be familiar with.

Not only did this Southpac Legend grow a large and successful log transport business from humble beginnings, but he was also there when the LTSC (Log Transport Safety Council) was formed and continues to ‘learn’ with the TOL (Tour of Learning) group. 

As with many transport operators Alan developed a keen interest in trucks through his father.   As a young fella, he used to go to work with his dad, going out with the trucks and helping with the material handling. 

“I just liked machinery and trucks so I used to go w... ... 

With his distinctive fleet of gold trucks, the introduction of his identical twin daughters to truck driving and having just ticked over half a century of being in business, not only is 71-year-old John Lockley still out behind the wheel of his Kenworth T900 but retains an unwavering passion for the industry. And for that, he’s a Southpac legend.

Born in Te Aroha on the western fringe of the Kaimai’s, John’s upbringing came with a very rural outlook. His father was a share milker who worked at various locations around the area, and that’s where John says he got his first taste of machinery.  

“We lived in Ngarua at one point, and there the old man had me driving a tra... ... 

During a lifetime working in the trucking industry, Ian Emmerson has developed a strong philosophy that, while competition is vital to driving business efficiency, just as much can be gained from cooperation – between transport operators and their customers, and between industry groups. 

This month’s Southpac Legend also admits to being passionate about the engineering side of the business, in terms of specifying and setting up units for optimal efficiency and suitability for their jobs.

To this end he was very active in the industry group that worked with government agencies to develop what became the HPMV regulations in the early 2010s. 

Early, and succes... ...