Steve Wilson - MNZOM for services to business

20/1/2009

Steve (Stephen Ernest) Wilson (1968-71) is the second Old Boy to receive the Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2009 New Year’s Honours … and he will join Col Brendan Fraher at the investiture in May.

Steve, who received the MNZOM for his services for business, completed his intermediate engineering year at Otago University before finishing his BE (First Class Hons, Mechanical) at Canterbury in 1975.

Steve Wilson

After various stints as assistant engineer (Christchurch Electricity Department), design engineer, engineering manager and General Manager (HE Gardner & Sons), he served as Managing Director of Reese Flooring and Reese Plastics before taking the MD’s role with Lane Walker Rudkin Hosiery & Underwear and then Arthur Ellis Ltd.

Between 1994 and 1996 Steve was the Chief Executive of Donaghys Industries Ltd and since ’96 has filled the role of Managing Director of Talbot Plastics Ltd in Christchurch.

In 2001 he was made a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Management.

Steve has directorships with a number of companies, has served two separate two-year terms as President of Plastics New Zealand along with 14 years on the national executive, he is a past executive and council member of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ and Exporters’ Association, is a past Chairman and a current member of the Governance Board of the New Zealand Plastics Centre of Excellence, and is a past director of the Canterbury Hockey Association.

Steve says that two things which drive him are being a small part of other people’s success and assisting people achieve what they are capable of.

He has been with Talbot Plastics, a firm he partly owns, for 13 years and in that time has overseen monumental growth and staff numbers rising from 30 to more than 100.

During his presidency of Plastics New Zealand, Steve assisted with the creation of a strategic plan to grow industry sales from $2 billion to $4 billion by 2015 with an emphasis placed on exporting. To speed this process, a partnership was established with Auckland University with the objective of creating internationally leading concepts.

He has also been involved with the development of new industry-specific training courses with the aim, there again, to be clever and creative.

As an example, Talbot Plastics has a relationship with Tait Electronics where plastic casing was developed for a new portable radio. This gave both companies the opportunity to be a little more creative than might have been the case if Tait had been dealing with an Asian supplier at long distance.

Talbot Plastics is also working alongside Fisher & Paykel Healthcare to design a different housing for a sleep apnoea humidifier and has formed a joint venture with an Australian firm to make Christchurch city’s new wheelie bins.