On a warm afternoon on the 14th of May 2014, I stood in a long queue in Santiago with other pilgrims, waiting to receive my Compostela, a certificate to attest that I had walked 790 km from St Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago near the western coast of Spain. The journey had taken 32 days, and I’d carried my rucksack and walked the route unassisted. I had never felt so proud or so elated. I was 75 years old.

Origins and History

The Camino de Santiago, also known as the Way of Saint James, is a pilgrimage route leading to the shrine of Saint James in the Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. According to legend, Saint James was martyred in Jerusalem, and his body was transported back to Galicia by his disciples, where he now rests. Early in the 9th century, a shepherd, guided by a star, rediscovered the tomb, leading to the establishment of Santiago de Compostela (Compostela of the Stars) as a significant pilgrimage site.

By the 10th century, the Camino had become one of the most important Christian pilgrimage routes. It peaked in the 12th and 13th centuries, then waned in the Middle Ages due to the black plague and the protestant reformation. In those times, the Camino was a dangerous undertaking with sickness, hunger, wild animals and robbers to contend with. However, over the ensuing years, a trickle of the devout continued to keep the tradition alive, perhaps stimulated by an edict from the Pope, promising that repentant sinners who made the pilgrimage would be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven with all their sins forgiven.

Modern Times

The revival of the Camino began in the late 20th century when, in 1993, it was inducted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Then, in September 2010, the movie “The Way” with Martin Sheen was released at the Toronto Film Festival. His character, Tom Avery, walked the Camino as a tribute to his fictional son, an American backpacker who died on the Camino in a snowstorm while attempting to cross the Pyrenees. This captured the imagination of the Western world, and the Camino de Santiago now attracts hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year.

As a non-believer, my pilgrimage was a rather unholy one. I had nothing to prove but was motivated by the history, the challenge, and the promise of adventure.

To qualify for the Compostela (certificate to prove you are a genuine pilgrim), you must walk at least 100 km and end your journey at the Cathedral de Santiago. Hordes of young Spaniards and foreign tourists join the pilgrimage in the European holiday periods. Those wishing to take advantage of the shortest option commence at a small town called Sarria, 112km East of Santiago. They are easily identified by their fashionable clothing, monstrous backpacks and loud and happy disposition. The “real” pilgrims, however, by the time they reach Sarria, have already walked 700 km and are easily identified by their meagre possessions, determined expressions, and relentless walking pace. They have very little patience for the pretenders!

There is a third class of pilgrim these days. They are transported over the more challenging terrain in buses and taxis, and if they decide to walk on the easier gradients, their luggage is trucked on ahead. It’s unclear whether the pope’s forgiveness of sins edict also applies to these pilgrims.

The Camino route is marked by yellow arrows painted on the roads or walls in the villages. And since ancient times, Peregrines (pilgrims) have tied scallop shells to their backpacks to signify their devout status. During my journey, the yellow arrows proved to be both a help and a curse. When the trickle of pilgrims became a stream of thousands after the success of “The Way”, accommodation owners missing out on the tourist bonanza, understandably painted their own yellow arrows to divert potential patrons from the traditional route to the doors of their establishments. With my dodgy sense of direction, I was caught out several times and one day was hopelessly lost and added an extra 12 km to the 23 km I had planned to walk that day.

Impressions From My Journey

Our pilgrimage started in St Jean Pied de Port, a lovely French village, roughly translated as ‘gateway to the St James walking track’. I was lucky to be accompanied on the first part of the journey by my two daughters, Nicola and Joanna, and my sister, Margaret. I was unprepared for the rigours of the first day, which turned out to be the most challenging of the entire adventure – 27 km over the Pyrenees and most of it uphill. I wasn’t nearly as fit as I thought, and when we finally arrived in Roncesvalles, Spain, I had never been so exhausted. Not even when, as a young man, I was working a nine-hour day as a learner sheep shearer.

My sister Margaret, me, and daughters – Joanna and Nicola.

We set out again on the second day and I was soon walking alone at a good pace when I noticed a farmer in a field on a tractor who seemed agitated. He was waving his arms, and when he’d got my attention, he stepped down, gesturing behind me and yelled loudly, “Camino por alli!” I was heading in the wrong direction, and he was very kindly telling me I had to retrace my steps. Such was the attitude of the Spanish throughout; they respected the Peregrines, greeted us courteously, and never failed to assist if they could.

It was wonderful to have family members at times with me on the journey. Joanna eventually had to go back to work in New Zealand, and Nicola back to her home in Madrid, but she drove from Madrid to spend time with me every weekend, which was phenomenal. I was joined by my friend Charlie Blythe from Cork for a while, and by my little sister, Margaret, for at least half of the journey. She would have walked the entire route, but a bad case of gastro was doing the rounds in the Auberges, where the pilgrims sleep, and she needed time to recuperate in Madrid.

There were several small cairns on the track, marking sites where people had died. Also, not surprisingly, there was much discarded footware, some in excellent condition but not fit for purpose for their owners.

I, too, learnt the hard way. By the time I returned home, I had replaced my shoes with a more suitable pair one size larger, forced upon me by the loss of three toenails. One day, we met a Swedish man sitting on the verge of the track, ruefully rubbing his blistered and swollen feet. He was very appreciative when my physiotherapist sister dressed his wounds and bound his ankle to relieve a bad case of tendonitis. He pointed to his fashionable blue runners and said, “See these shoes? I walked 100 km at home to break them in, and they were fine, but they’re not fine here.” And we had to agree.

For the last 400 km, I walked principally with three companions. A New Zealander, an Irishman and a Londoner. The wife of my comrade from London insisted he take supplies for every emergency. His ruck sack was enormous, but he battled on in deference to his wife without complaint.

One hot morning, tired and very red in the face, he was desperate for a drink. He knocked on the door of a small cottage and asked the elderly lady if she could give him some water. When she provided it, he took out his wallet and made signs asking if she could make him some breakfast. She nodded but shook her head when he made to follow her inside. He waited on the doorstep until she passed a welcome breakfast of ham eggs and coffee through the window. No matter how he insisted, she refused to accept payment and just smiled and wished him a Buen Camino as she closed the window again.

It was a warm, sunny morning one day after a night of light rain. The countryside was sparkling, which raised my spirits a little because I was lost and knew it was going to be a long day. So, before I retraced my steps, I sat down on a low wall to remove my shoes and massage my aching feet. A short distance away, I could see a stone cottage half hidden by trees with two small windows and a front door that looked like a picture a child would draw. A very old man emerged, stooping to fit through the doorway.  I greeted him in Spanish, but he didn’t answer. He just nodded and stared at me suspiciously for a long time before turning around and shuffling back to the gloom inside. How I wished I could have conversed with him. He was old enough to have lived through the Spanish Civil War and Franko’s fascist regime. But he and I were creatures from totally different worlds with nothing in common. I often think of him.

Rest stop.

Quite early on our journey, Margaret, Joanna and I had been walking for several hours through rolling farmland. A main highway was running parallel to us about half a km away. By mid-morning, we were ready for a coffee and angled off toward a Truckstop. We exchanged nods with some truck drivers sitting together in the café. We enjoyed our coffee break, and then set off again. Half an hour later a large truck was speeding along in our direction with its horn blaring. As it drew level a friendly truckie leaned out, waved to us, and the words “Buen Camino!” were shouted back at us as he disappeared into the distance.

In the late afternoon and evenings, the Auberges where travellers were accommodated were busy places, and with people living together in close proximity, gastro outbreaks were not uncommon. We were staying at Terradillos de Templarios, and Margaret was violently ill. Between bouts of sleeping, the owners plied her with soup made from traditional ingredients for which they refused payment, but to no avail. She was forced to leave me, to recuperate with Nicola in Madrid. Then Charlie succumbed and needed to return home to Cork. So I set off once again on my own.

Margaret rejoined me towards the end of the journey but was still not well, and we stopped at a coffee shop near Santiago to ask if they could spare two Disprins. They obliged and also provided coffee and muffins to me, for which they refused payment. The generosity we experienced so often was humbling.

I felt as though I was walking on air as I came to the end of my journey and ascended the steps of the Camino de Santiago after 32 days.

The Singing Nun

The Cathedral de Santiago is imposing and was a fitting place to end our journey. A steady stream of the devout can be seen in daylight hours, ascending a stairway on the right-hand side of the cathedral to lay hands on the tomb of Saint James.

The day after our arrival, we unholy pilgrims sat quietly in the main body of the cathedral, waiting for the Pilgrims’ Mass to start. Traditionally, at these services, the names and nationalities of the pilgrims who had collected their Compostela the day before were read out. On this day, we were lucky to be witnessing the kindling and operation of the Botafumeiro, the famous incense burner that had been in operation since the 12th century. It was initially used to mask the fetid smell of unwashed pilgrims. In modern times, some of the pilgrims even use deodorants, so the crucible doesn’t see the light of day for every Mass.

The Botafumeiro is suspended by a pulley system, allowing it to swing in a wide arc across the cathedral’s nave and above the heads of the congregation. It is operated by a team of eight men dressed in scarlet robes. It is suspended 21 metres from the ceiling, and can reach speeds of 68 km/h as it swings in an arc of more than 50 metres. It is reported that the ropes have broken three times over the centuries, and the crucible has fallen, scattering hot coals among those below. It is very heavy and would wreak havoc if it fell on any of the worshipers. I watched it nervously.

As the crucible swung in its arc above, us the organ began to play, and a soprano voice soared from the shadows. I was overcome by the beauty of the music and dabbed my teary eyes. The singing stopped, and three priests emerged and began to prepare for the service. They were adorned in the majestic vestments of their calling. The central figure holding a crook, imposing in white, with gold and scarlet trimmings under a tall golden mitre. I looked more closely and realised I’d seen him somewhere, and then recalled a small self-confident, impeccably dressed man, accompanied by three attentive girls walking the last stages of the Camino. At the time I’d wondered who he was and why he needed to be fawned upon, and now I understood. We were approaching Easter, and to demonstrate his humility he would have joined the Camino at Sarria to walk the last 100 kms. The three attendants were his acolytes.

After the Mass, the organ played, and the soprano voice soared once more. I had to see her. I rose and edged quietly towards its source – and there she was, standing in the shadows, behind and to the side of the three glittering peacocks.  A small middle-aged nun who knew her place. Drab as a tiny sparrow. Dressed in a black habit with the voice of an angel.

The next day, we were scheduled to leave; I was enjoying a farewell beer on the sidewalk in the centre of Santiago with my three friends. I still hadn’t come down from the high of conquering the Camino and, on a whim, took my harmonica from my pocket and began to play The Proclaimers hit, I’m Gona Walk (500 Miles). It’s a lively tune with a thumping rhythm and soon a small crowd had gathered, and two girls were dancing together in time to the music.

All was good with the world, and that scene was a memory I will take to my grave.

Looking Back

For 10 years following our Camino adventure, Auto-IT continued to grow. Another shareholder, Wayne Rushworth, took over from me as CEO, and I assumed the position of company Chairman. Finally, 24 years after its inauguration, in March 2024, the company was purchased by a public company headquartered in Ontario, Canada.

Staff have been retained, and the Auto-IT brand lives on with different owners.

It’s been a long journey for me. Fortune smiled on me when I was born in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1939. I’d won the jackpot by being a white male with loving parents, born into a stable Western democracy.

I lived with my grandparents at the Pencarrow lighthouse during the war years and then with my parents in the Belmont Hills, Lower Hut. At High School, I was streamed into a reasonably high level and could have followed the accepted path of university education and a career in the city. But I’d set my mind on becoming a farmer and left home four months before my 16th birthday; a decision I’ve never regretted.

In the ensuing eight years, I worked at many rural occupations in NZ’s North and South Islands until, in May 1964, I accepted a position as Farm Manager of Cairn Peak Station, a 5,200-acre hill country property near Invercargill at the bottom of the South Island. This was the same month I married my wife, Rosaline Peterson, and on the same day my mother passed away with a cerebral haemorrhage. She was only 47.

Cairn Peak was a big, rough, underdeveloped property with very little to recommend it but its size. I convinced the three absentee owners I had the ability to develop the property, and it would be in all our interests to let me buy my way into a quarter share. We agreed this would cost me £1,500 up front and a further £3,500 to be financed by salary sacrifice. My salary was £1,000 a year, a very good wage at the time.

This forced a frugal lifestyle on us for many years. Our daughter Nicola was born 11 months after our marriage, and Joanna and Graeme followed in quick succession, so while I was working insanely long hours on the farm, Rosaline was working equally hard, cooking for staff and mothering three children under the age of three.

Fifteen years later, we’d purchased more land, and the winter carrying capacity on the farm had risen from 3,000 to 8,000 stock units. In addition, we’d converted 2,000 acres of unproductive land into a viable forestry enterprise and added cash crops of wheat and barley to our income stream. By this stage, I’d bought my way into a 50% share, with the other half owned by Bill Piercy, an absentee owner with an accountancy practice in Gore.

In those days a heavy price was paid by farm workers, uneducated as we were in the dangers of our profession. Little or no attention was paid to safe work practices, and all my friends of similar age have impaired hearing due to long hours driving agricultural machinery with no ear protection. Protective goggles were also unheard of, and I permanently lost the sight in my right eye due to a deep penetrating wound from a flying nail, when building a fence in 1970.

In 1979 I was recruited by the NZ Foreign Affairs Department to the position of Ranch Manager of the Uluisaivou corporation in Fiji. This was a two-year contract, so we employed a Farm Manager to run Cairn Peak, and Rosaline, my son Graeme and I took up residence in a remote area in the north of Viti Levu. Graeme commenced schooling by correspondence under Rosie’s tuition while our two girls attended boarding school in Invercargill.

 The ranch comprised 120,000 acres of native land, set up as a cooperative venture for the local landowners. The NZ government gifted 2,000 Brahman cross cattle, and a sugar cane plantation had been developed over the two years before my appointment. The Uluisaivou people were hardworking and welcoming, and I treasured our time there, but bureaucratic roadblocks and nepotism stymied progress, and at the end of 1980, we elected not to renew our contract and returned to the farm in NZ.

The interim manager on Cairn Peak had done well, and the farm looked a picture. Southland had experienced an excellent spring that year, so there was stock feed in abundance, and the lambing and calving percentages were as good as they had ever been. We were three quarters through a very profitable financial year, and I decided this would be a good time to dissolve our partnership and give Rosaline and me the opportunity to take control of our own destiny.

I raised this with Bill, my partner, but my suggestion was met with derision and eventually became the catalyst to turn an amiable 17-year partnership into a bitter, unresolvable feud. I’d devised a map outlining a practical way to divide the holding into two standalone units and offered Bill first choice. He demurred and delayed for several weeks so I suggested he draw the line on the map, and I’d have first pick. He shook his head, then came back with an implausible scenario that would give him the lion’s share of the land and the assets, leaving me and Rosaline with an uneconomic holding. Trust was gone, it was time to go legal. After weeks of wrangling, the decision was made that the land, livestock, and business assets would be independently valued, and when the figures were agreed upon, the Piercys would be given first option to buy the entire business as a going concern.

Miraculously, Bill managed to find an offshore financier and late one memorable Friday afternoon, our lawyer called to congratulate us on the successful sale of our equity in Cairn Peak. I’d left home when I was 15 years old; no one had ever given us a cent; now I was 41, and we’d just become millionaires. Reluctant ones, as we’d just lost our farm.

Our marriage didn’t survive the ups and downs of this difficult period, and we separated. Rosaline bought a house in Invercargill, and I moved to our holiday cottage near Lake Manapouri in Fiordland. Eventually, we divorced, and I decided to make a new start in Australia.

At the time of the sale to bill, Cairn Peak was at its zenith. It had become one of the larger livestock enterprises in the Oreti Basin, and the wool clip required the equivalent of an 18-wheel semi-trailer to ship to market. But it was to be all downhill from there. Bill’s intemperate gamble hadn’t paid off, and after a year or two, he fell into arears. The mortgagor foreclosed, the property was split up with the best portions being sold to adjacent farmers, and the less productive country offloaded for forestry development.

I revisited the farm 40 years later, in August 2024. What was left was a sorry site. Just a few gorse-infested paddocks in the foothills, dilapidated fences and the covered yards that used to accommodate three thousand sheep were standing vacant and useless. The ornamental trees I’d planted in the driveway to the house were now mature and looked amazing, but the little school bus shelter we’d built for the children at the farm gate had served its purpose and was long gone.

There was nothing left to inspire anybody.

Across the Ditch

I arrived in Melbourne one sunny day in March 1983 on the day of my birthday. I was 44 years old and had arranged to stay with friends for a week or two until I’d worked out the lay of the land. In the first three months, I bought a modest house and a second-hand car and unsuccessfully attended two job interviews. But my resume wasn’t exactly run of the mill for a big city. I was struggling with my new urban life but determined to make a go of things. Finally, after four months, I saw a TV advertisement for people to attend a five-month course on becoming computer industry salespeople. I didn’t know exactly what selling would entail, but was prepared to try. I’m pleased I did. I came third in the course and by the end of the year, was successful in landing a sales job with Daro Computers.

Around this time, Lee, a close friend from NZ, moved in with me permanently with her son, Dane. Earlier in the year, she’d helped me find the house we live in now. Our friendship had blossomed, and we decided we were ready for a permanent relationship. That was 41 years ago, and we’ve been soul mates ever since.

Meanwhile, the timing of my shift to Australia was fortuitous. The PC revolution had arrived, and it wasn’t hard to convince small businesses of the benefits of changing from dumb terminals to personal computers.

Over the next four years, I worked for four different companies. The pace of the PC market had become turbocharged with the arrival of the IBM PC and Microsoft’s new operating system. I’d become a go-to computer network sales advisor for several high-profile businesses and decided to change from employee to contractor for tax reasons.

I named my new company KGM Management and provided a sales service in exchange for 30% of the gross profit on everything I sold. Three of the companies I contracted to succumbed to the overheated marketplace and two went out of business, but I managed to maintain my equilibrium and grow my customer base.

Fate had brought me and Lee together, and fate played a hand again with the chance meeting of Michael Damianos, who I happened to be sitting next to in a restaurant. We talked about the ups and downs of the business climate, and Michael suggested we meet in his office. As a result of this meeting, he became my accountant, then my business advisor, and eventually my business partner when, in 1988, he asked if I’d be interested in running an IT offshoot of his accounting firm. We briefly discussed how the relationship could work and consummated the deal with a handshake. Forty-five years have passed since then, and we remain friends and business partners to this day.

In 2000, we merged with a competitor and created a new company called Auto-IT.

Things I’ve Learnt & Things I’d Like to Share.

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Wisdom From the Ages

In great societies, old men plant trees, beneath whose shade they’ll never sit. (Greek Proverb)

Some Things I’ve Learned

1. I am where I am because I put myself there.

This sign graced the desk of Ken Morgan—dealer Principal of Ken Morgan Toyota in the 1990s. Ken did a lot of work with disadvantaged youth.

As we know, there’s nothing fair in life. Try telling an animal lower in the food chain that it’s not fair that a lion must eat him to survive. That’s its fate. But putting fate aside, at any point in time, you are where you are because you put yourself there. Success or failure, prison or freedom, it’s mostly up to you.

2. Making decisions. I’ve learnt from experience that good decision making is an acquired skill. Below is an accepted methodology. There are three steps: (i) Analysis, (ii) Decision, and (iii) Consequences.

(i) Analysis: You are grappling with a tough problem. Don’t make a knee-jerk decision. Write down the pros and cons of every option you can think of. If you have the time, it’s OK to sleep on it. You’ll be amazed at how wise your inner consciousness is and how often the correct solution will be waiting for you when you wake up.

(ii) Decision: When you’ve had time to consider everything, don’t dither—make your decision and get on with it.

(iii) Accept the consequences: This is as important as (i) and (ii) above. You followed the process, so more often than not, your decision will be the correct one. If you were wrong, don’t waste time with regrets; you did your best.

3. Things are never as bad as you think you are. It’s after midnight; you’re lying on your back staring at the ceiling. You’re sick with worry.

We’ve all been there, and if you’re running a small business, as I have most of my life, you will have had many of these sleepless nights. But you know what? There’s always a way out or a compromise that will help!

In the light of day, things are never as bad as you think. Not ever!

Conversely, when things are too good to be true – they probably are! Be vigilant when times are good.

4. There are benefits of every age in your journey of life. If you lead a life respectful of others, you’ll find your life rewarding most, if not all the time. Don’t burden yourself with regretting the past or yearning for the future.

Take me for example. I’m in my mid-eighties, I’ve very little hair left, my skin has been wrecked by the sun, and I’m hopeless without hearing aids. But I love my family, and I love my wife.  We laugh a lot, we travel a lot, and have many friends.

My life has never been better. I am where I am because I put myself here!

5. Money. It’s not shameful to make a lot of money, provided you earned it without breaking your code of common decency. But having money doesn’t buy you happiness; it just means you don’t have to think about money.

6. Religion. Oft quoted Eighteenth Century French philosopher François Voltaire famously said, “If there isn’t a God, it would be necessary to create one.”

There’s no plausible reason to disagree with Voltaire’s insight. Billions of people, particularly the vulnerable, find comfort in praying to their version of God because the promise of an afterlife offers redemption for the mediocrity they are forced to endure on earth. Voltaire was right.

I don’t believe in anything that can’t be backed by science, so spare me your conspiracy theories, or the preposterous notions of Creation and Judgement Day.

In all religions, both the major five or six in the mainstream and the hundreds of quirky outliers, there’s a charismatic leader or founder with a direct line to the almighty. This person talks to their God and communicates the tenets of the religion to trusted lieutenants who enforce the spiritual mores on the congregation.

Many of these religions do a power of good, but those led by the radical and the unscrupulous – do a power of evil. And if it comes down to prioritising the well being of the church and the well being of the congregation, all religions in my experience protect the reputation of the church first.

Final Word

It’s far better to be full of wine than full of crap. (Seen on a greeting card in a $2 shop.) 

Ken Fife – December, 2024

Me and Lee – Scotland, September 2024

The rollout of EQUIP® to the John Deere equipment dealers in the US was proceeding at an exhilarating pace. In 2004, we attended the annual John Deere User Group conference in Saint Louis, Missouri, (below) and were impressed by the sophistication of the displays and the enthusiasm of the attendees.

John Deere dealers and their staff attended in their hundreds, demonstrably proud of their loyalty to the company and its products.  But above all, for us, the EQUIP® brand was front and centre. Our future in the United States and Canada seemed assured.

South Africa

In 2007 Rohan Duncan and I made the first of several visits to South Africa. We’d been invited there by Adriaan Du Randt, a dealer management system provider in Johannesburg. Adriaan was looking to find a modern DMS to replace the legacy system he was currently selling.

Johannesburg is a beautiful part of South Africa, but with a dangerous edge.

Since Mandella’s inauguration the white population has remained static, and ethnic Asian and Muslim populations have markedly decreased. In contrast the black population has increased by 20 million, a number well beyond the country’s ability to assimilate. This explosion was caused by a constant stream of northern neighbors breaching the fence in search of a better life. Nowadays, black residents can roam freely, but this freedom doesn’t bring jobs. Paradoxically white people have jobs, but it isn’t safe for them to live outside gated compounds.

We’d been warned not to risk public transport, and Adriaan picked us up from the airport. At every traffic light on the way to Centurian where Adriaan lived, there were small knots of locals desperately trying to trade with cars waiting at the lights. Unfortunately, if you stopped, your chance of being harassed or violently carjacked increased. So, cars slowed down well in advance if the lights were amber or red, and floored the accelerator when they turned green.

Rohan Duncan and Jodie Pitt, two senior Auto-IT staff, after a hard day’s work in Johannesburg, Feb 2008.

The compound where Adriaan and his family resided contained a beautiful golf course and hundreds of modern, well-appointed houses.

An oasis of tranquility kept safe by security patrols and razor wire. In the early mornings young African men clustered around the entrance gate hoping to be selected for caddy duty. The unsuccessful drifted away around midday.

Adriaan was a generous and entertaining host. During our visit we forged a business relationship with his company – AKNT Technologies which exists to the present day.

Our UNITS® and EQUIP® software, thanks to Adriaan’s staff, is now running businesses in 13 African nations.

Pictured: AKNT Technologies Johannesburg. From left Willem DuRandt, Theuns Beukes, Adriaan du Randt, Pierre Coetzer.

USA

Later that year I pondered over how we could obtain an endorsement from John Deere, to assist us to sell into their international markets. My problem was one of credibility. How could John Deere, a USD $25 billion a year company, be encouraged to stand behind Auto-IT, an AUD $9.2 million company? I would need to convince a senior executive of the benefits.

We had some good friends within Deere who provided me with the name and title of the Director I would need to convince. My plan was to ask for a face-to-face meeting. I sent off my request, it was accepted, the time and date were fixed, and the die was cast.   

John Deere’s head office is in Moline, Illinois. Moline is a grueling 27-hour journey from Melbourne. I wore a suit during the flights, changed into a fresh business shirt after landing in Moline, then caught a cab to meet up with John Campbell and Bruce Dalfonso, my two sponsors from JDIS. Together we were ushered into the Director’s office where we sat nervously for a few moments until he entered and sat at his desk.

He didn’t offer a handshake, there was no smile of welcome or comments on my long journey, in fact there was no small talk at all. I introduced myself and explained briefly why it was in both our companies’ interest to work together to introduce EQUIP® into Deere dealerships outside the US. I handed him a one-page synopsis of my proposition.

He scanned it then said to John and Bruce, “Have you read this?” They nodded. He said to me, “What do you want me to do?” I said, “If you agree there are advantages in collaboration, a team from Moline and one from Melbourne should meet in a neutral venue to brainstorm a practical way forward. Hawaii would be a good venue.” He looked up again and said to John and Bruce, “Do you agree?” They both nodded. He stood up and said, “Then I’ll leave the arrangements to you two. Make sure you keep me in the picture.” And with a nod to me he disappeared through the door.

John turned to me and said, “You probably don’t realise what we’ve just achieved,” and at the time I probably didn’t, but that 20-minute meeting proved to be the key that opened the welcome door to us in all Deere’s important international offices.

The two-day conference in Hawaii went ahead and at the end of it, Bruce Dalfonso was assigned to travel with us with the title, Manager EQUIP® Marketing. He was now Deere’s elected representative to broker introductions to decision makers throughout Deere’s international network.

Mexico

Our first venture under the new arrangement was an exploratory trip in November 2007 to John Deere’s head office in Mexico. This was Monterey, a border town in Northeast Mexico and a hot spot for cartel rivalry.

From left, John Deere Mexico Computer Services Manager, Mario Garcia, Bill Jones, Director JDIS, and me.

Frank came with me, and we were accompanied by Bruce, and Bill Jones, the newly appointed Director of John Deere Information Systems. We spent several days scoping out the needs of the Mexican dealers and Frank, being a native Italian speaker, was conversing with the local dealers in workable Spanish in no time.

Monterey is a truly beautiful city with cleverly designed parks and gardens, and a backdrop of impressively rugged mountains. Unfortunately, the drug trade is on steroids and when we were there, armed personnel carriers sped through the streets on endless urgent missions, and police with assault rifles were never far from sight.

We followed local advice, restricted ourselves to safe areas, and when we left were able to report our sales efforts in Mexico had been successful. As a result, today, almost all Deere’s dealerships in that country are running their businesses on an EQUIP® software platform.

Frank visited Monterey a year or so later to find that violence in the area had escalated and the CBD had been taken over by competing gangs. He was forced to find safe accommodation in a quiet suburb across the Santa Caterina River, and because public transport was now unsafe, he was met at the airport and delivered there by a local John Deere representative. On that trip he was also accompanied by three Deere people from Moline as they needed to consult as a team with a key dealer in Chihuahua. This was deemed in the US to be a dangerous journey, and all their movements were monitored from Deere’s security department in Chicago.

The 2010 wave of violence in Monterey broke out again in 2023. Another war erupted recently, and seven corpses and five bags of body parts were distributed around the city as a graphic warning to new hopeful drug lords.

Out shopping in a Monterey supermarket. Frank took a photo of this newspaper article during his last visit.

Hawaii

In May 2008 we held another meeting in Hawaii, this time to negotiate the terms for the purchase by Deere of the EQUIP® source code for North America. The result was announced to the world in the statement below.

Press Release Dec 2008

US $6 million Export Deal for Auto-IT. John Deere Information Systems now owns the source code of EQUIP® in North America, but only for the Agriculture and Construction Industry. Auto-IT retains the right to sell its software systems to non-agricultural, forestry and construction dealerships in North America, as well as to all markets internationally.

Russia

In 2009, we conducted presentations in Manheim Germany, Deere’s regional head office for East and West Europe. We failed to excite much interest from German dealer system providers, and fared little better with a Polish contingent. But interest from the Russians was promising. At our conference we were introduced to Dmitry Kazachkov and invited to meet with him in Moscow. Dmitry was CEO of 1C-Rarus an IT company recommended by Deere as a suitable Russian partner for us.

Our contingent for the first visit to Moscow was made up of seven people. Frank and me, Bruce Dalfonso, and four John Deere Europe dealer development people. Accommodation had been organized for us at the Korston Hotel, which was comfortable and rather grand in a flamboyant way.

We were later to learn that President Putin had recently shut down the Moscow gambling venues and the Korston Casino had been decommissioned. Putin’s proclamation didn’t extend to houses of ill repute though, because it didn’t take us long to realise the Korston Hotel also had a busy sideline as a working brothel, and the gorgeous young women walking down the stairs, and hitchhiking their way back to Moscow, were working girls coming off their shifts.

Korston Hotel

On our first day we demonstrated EQUIP® at a well-attended gathering of John Deere dealers, principally made up of large confident men exuding a healthy measure of skepticism. The day was entertaining, and we weren’t unhappy when it was over, but I knew they’d be a hard lot to negotiate with.

The next day, I had a meeting with the CEO of 1-C Rarus to work through the clauses in our agency agreements, while Frank and the Deere people met to discuss localization needs. Frank later reported that the changes we had to make were more significant than expected. He’d been informed in Australia that the international accounting standards underpinning EQUIP® were now officially acceptable in Russia, but the dealers weren’t interested.

In real life they said, new accounting rules would provide an opportunity for government officials to enter their premises on the pretext of auditing. This would give them the opportunity to lock the computer systems, until significant bribes were paid.

Frank and me with John Deere dealer development managers from Germany, Poland, Ukraine and Russia – prior to presenting EQUIP® to the Russian Dealers.

To avoid these problems, we had to re-code our software to feed the results of every transaction into 1-C, the existing state approved system.

While Frank was meeting with the dealers, I visited 1-C Rarus to meet with the CEO, Dmitry Kazachko, pictured on the left, with his right-hand man, Evgeniy Dockuchaev.

The office was hot and airless, the rooms featureless, and the desks tightly packed together. Dmitry was a substantial shareholder of both 1-C and his own company Rarus. This meant he was politically well connected, and I was informed, significantly wealthy. The purpose of our meeting was to discuss the terms for Rarus to become our exclusive agents for the sales implementation and support of UNITS® & EQUIP® in Russia.

Our discussions were concluded satisfactorily with a handshake after two afternoon sessions and the contract was ready for our solicitors’ approval. Auto-IT would need to concede a little on some minor points and Dmitry had asked to extend his exclusive agency rights into three other nations in the previous USSR territory.

Frank and Bruce hamming it up after work at a Moscow market.

On Friday morning Dmitriy said “If you agree, I’ve made interesting plans for your weekend. Be at the Moscow Central Station at 6pm, I’ve booked you on the overnight train to St Petersburg.

This generous decision covered our party of 5 plus his right-hand man, Yevgeniy Dockuchaev. We were booked into first-class carriages with two single beds.

On arrival we were met by a young lady with fluent English who showed us all the sights of this historic city over two full days. On Sunday night we took the same train back to Moscow and in the morning, we were met at the station and transported for breakfast at the Metropol Hotel in the center of Moscow. This is a very grand building, dating back to pre-revolution days. The Metropol was made famous in modern times by the best-selling book, A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towells, and also recently in a series streamed on Netflix.

Bruce and Evgeniy on the overnight train to St Petersburg.

Breakfast at the Metropol.

When breakfast was over a van was waiting to take Frank and me to the airport and home. It was driven by Yevgeniy’s brother who kindly gave us each a gift of an old USSR bank note as a going away present.

So once again we’d been treated exceedingly generously in a way that eclipsed even the magnanimity we’d been shown in Kuwait. Our success in Russia was assured.

Two months later in November, Rohan and I flew into Moscow again. There was no air bridge, so we disembarked and walked across the tarmac to the arrivals hall. The locals were dressed against the cold, but we hadn’t been forewarned and the freezing blast after the warm cabin was excruciating.

Inside there were no crowd barriers, and a heaving scrum of people were clamoring to get past customs. We eventually made it and were escorted to Korston once again. Our mission was to demonstrate UNITS® to Ekoniva, the Toyota car dealership that Rarus had selected to be our first live trial site.

When the weekend came, Dmitry’s generosity came to the fore once again, and a professional guide was waiting in the lobby to escort us on a full day tour around the many historic sites in Moscow.

Early in the new year the assigned Rarus team came to Australia for a two week training course and to work with us to set up the structure of workflow for the localization of the software. I offered to organize comfortable accommodation in the city close to our offices but was told that Rarus had taken care of it themselves. When they arrived, we transported them to their digs, which proved to be in a cheap motel with two bedrooms, well out of the city. There were four men, and one young lady called Maria. I asked her if she was okay sharing rooms with the men and she didn’t seem phased. I suspect cost was significantly more important than privacy.

After checking in, and despite the late hour, they all set off for their first view of Australia. They walked along a rural road towards Hoppers Crossing and spent an hour or so in a service station café before returning to their motel – and disaster. Somebody in the know had lifted the sliding door to the terrace off its tracks, entered their room, and ransacked their luggage. Anything of value was stolen including cameras, clothing and all their computers. The computers were pivotal to their work and finding replacements keyboards with Russian characters in Melbourne took some doing. The staff and the police were polite enough, but the motel showed no interest in accepting responsibility for the terrace door which could be so easily removed from the outside.

Three of the five person Russian technical team: From L-R, Nicholay Kiryanov, Maria Chernysheva, Sergey Dolgov.

The Russian team, when they settled in, were smart and engaging, and when the time came for them to return to Moscow, both teams had an agreed conversion plan with defined timelines and deliverables. We’d also set hard dates for progress meetings because it was important to meet the scheduled target date for live running.

We got to work with enthusiasm, but the Russians never seemed to be able to reach their promised targets. At each meeting they were further behind until it became evident, we had no hope of meeting the live running targets. These were capable well-trained professionals, the only conclusion I could draw was that they were being diverted onto other more pressing projects.

I was taught in my sales training days that you can’t hatch China Eggs. I estimate the cost to Auto-IT of trying to enter the Russia market was now in excess of half a million Australian dollars, but without commitment from Rarus we could never succeed. It was time to call it quits.

In the final analysis the Russians seemed to have a different agenda. The most puzzling enigma I’d been confronted with in my long career. I emailed Dmitriy and told him why I had decided to cancel our contracts. He rang me and expressed genuine surprise. We had a reasonable conversation, during which he suggested we reset, but he didn’t argue when I refused.

Up Next: Chapter 8 – The Final Instalment

If you’re a subscriber, keep a watch on your inbox for the concluding chapter of my story.

Ken Fife – September, 2024

Financially, the heat was off. Our home territory was divided into three business units. The largest was the Melbourne head office, responsible for companywide administration and the development, sales, and support of the new-generation UNITS® and EQUIP® suite of products.

The Sydney office housed the ex-Newmans team responsible for eastern states account management and the continued development, sales and support for PMDS®, their legacy DMS. And in NZ, our Wellington office, under the leadership of Roger Peffers, was a standalone business entity charged with selling and supporting all the company’s products and services in that country. Roger was also responsible for support and implementation of our Southeast Asian conquests.

The principal opposition, also based in Melbourne, had dominated the market in our region for two decades and was an aggressive competitor.  As the saying goes, where does the alpha gorilla sleep in the jungle? Answer: anywhere he likes! And so it was. We needed a point of difference, and it came in the opportunity to enter the international Agricultural and Construction industry market on the back of the credibility afforded us by our deal with John Deere. This would lessen our exposure to adverse fluctuations in the automotive market.

Our arrangement with JDIS in the US was to train their sales and support teams so they could convert the John Deere dealers to our software which they’d rebranded “Equip.” Our part of the bargain was to provide technical support to JDIS and to keep the system compliant with the accounting and legal requirements of the USA and Canada. North America was now an important revenue generator, and we could turn our mind to opportunities in other offshore markets.

With our client base steadily growing in Australia, NZ, North America and Southeast Asia, we opened our fourth permanent office, this one in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, and decided to try our hand in China.

Dr Mahatir bin Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, presenting an award to Auto-IT’s Sales and Marketing Director, Aaran Newman for recognition and sponsorship of KLIAC 2010.

China

There was a book published by Chin-Ning Chu in 1994 entitled “Thick Face, Black Heart. The Warrior Philosophy for Conquering the Challenges of Business and Life”. This book is still in print and is a must read for foreigners eying business opportunities in China.

A thick face means to disguise your intentions by displaying only emotions that suits your objective. Black Heart is self-explanatory. The objective is to win, and to advance your interests, the interests of your family, and the interests of China. Not to make friends.

Westerners expect transparency in business dealings, with clearly written contracts, and in most cases, a level playing field. Chinese believe trust can only develop over time, and a handshake emanating from a trusted relationship is more reliable than a signature on a piece of paper.

When demonstrating our dealer Management systems, we would explain the necessity for structured accounting, and automatically generated exception reports. I’d noticed business owners frowning at this concept. On questioning they would agree on the need to keep a watchful eye on staff, but more importantly the system would need to produce two sets of results, one for the owner and one for the tax man.

One dealer principal told me any system he’d invest in would need to produce three sets of results. One for the tax man, one for the owner, and one for the owner’s wife. He smiled when he explained this, but I don’t believe he was joking.

The China Team in 2005, from left: Me, Lee, Hu Wang, and Michael Cross.

I discovered an unassuming programmer Hu Wang from our development team, had grown up in Shanghai and was fluent in both Mandarin and Shanghainese. He turned out to be an excellent interpreter. Hu and I, together with Michael Cross, one of our senior sales guys, made several visits to China and had very little trouble obtaining qualified interviews with prospective clients.

The Chinese would be attentive, and our presentations flowed smoothly. We had encouraging meetings with the Shanghai Automotive Company, and also brokered a partnership with China Telecom. They would provide networking services to the companies we sold to, and we would collaborate in the sales process. In return they would share in profits from our software sales. The potential was enormous!

The signing ceremony with China Telecom duly took place and we returned to Melbourne reasonably satisfied. I wrote about our success in the Auto-IT company newsletter but was developing niggling doubts. I’d come to realise that in those early days everyone was trying to get a slice of the Chinese market, and the Chinese could pick and choose whoever they wanted to partner with.

They preferred to do business with foreigners who were prepared to take the lion’s share of the risk, for a minor share of the profit. In the case of China Telecom, or the Shanghai Automotive Company, why would these huge corporations sign such unlikely agreements with a small company like Auto-IT? Answer: because we couldn’t possibly challenge them financially if it came to litigation. Their risk was non-existent, but the upside for them was the opportunity to hook into to a potential new income stream while at the same time gaining knowledge of new foreign technology.

We discussed our fears with a marketing expert in Australia and were correctly advised there were easier pickings in other domains.

India

Whilst in China we’d been invited to present UNITS® to the IBM sales team in Shanghai. The demonstration went well and piqued the interest of Tobin Alexander, a young sales executive charged with selling solutions into the Asian Automotive market. Tobin was a hard-working Texan who spoke Mandarin. There were synergies in our interests, and we were to team up with Tobin and IBM in several prospecting forays in the future. The first was in New Delhi.

Tobin visited us in Melbourne, where we collaborated on putting together a response to a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the supply of a DMS for Mahindra, one of the largest suppliers of commercial and passenger vehicles in India. Rohan Duncan, one of our UNITS®,experts, and I, duly organized our visas and set off for our first visit to India.

New Delhi was an exciting city 20 years ago. The poverty was confronting, and the culture shock very real at first. But the colour, and the energy of the city, plus the sophistication of some of the hotels, shops, and restaurants won me over. A city of insane contrasts, with the most expensive cars on the planet mingling on the crowded streets with tuk-tuks handcarts and bicycles, all brought to a stop by a Brahman cow with dreamy eyes, lying in the middle of the road chewing its cud. My mind flashed back 28 years, to the look in the eyes of the marauding Brahman bull during my time in Fiji, just before he smashed the tibia and fibula in my right leg.

The first surprise when we emerged from the airport after negotiating the scrum through customs, was security. This consisted of strategically placed sentry posts constructed of sandbags piled chest high and roofed to keep out the weather. These were manned by soldiers armed with 60 years out of date Lee Enfield 303 rifles, dressed in scruffy World War II British army uniforms.

This was 2005 and the taxi to our upmarket hotel, charged to us at IBMs mouth-wateringly discounted rates, was a Hindustan Ambassador. An exact copy of the British 1957 Morris Oxford III S. India continued to manufacture these self-same vehicles for a further 60 years after partition, until the last one rolled off the production line in 2014. 

1957 Oxford IIIS re-licensed as a Hindustan Ambassador.

I made several trips back to India accompanied by either Rohan or Michael Cross, but circumstances did not work in our favour. The bid for the Mahindra business lasted four days. Our presentations went well enough and our strategy meetings with the IBM people proved to both parties that we could work together if we won the contract. But the weeks went by until Mahindra informed IBM they’d decided they would write their own system. I arrived home at around midnight from that trip feeling very uneasy. I’d travelled extensively over the years and was proud of my constitution, but this time I was beaten. By morning I had full-blown Delhi Belly and was violently sick and bedridden for three days.

A year later we’d learnt from our contacts at Ford Australia that Ford India were looking for a dealer management system to computerise their 145 dealerships. Many of these businesses were company owned, and our recommendation from Ford Australia gave us a significant advantage. Feedback was positive after we’d submitted our pricing, and we were told in confidence we were front runners.  But in June 2007 the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) took hold and when it ended in 2009 the Ford Motor Company had downsized globally, and their distribution network development plans in India had been abandoned.

Nowadays Auto-IT has an office in south India which employees a small programming team, but the company has no Indian customers.

Yemen

The most enigmatic deal I’ve ever been involved with commenced with an international call from Yemen. The caller asked in good, slightly accented English, if I could quote him for the supply of a dealer management system to be used in a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Sanaa. He sounded genuine so I sent off a proposal for the supply of the software, together with implementation and support services, and associated travel and accommodation costs.

He rang me back saying they were computer literate and wouldn’t require training or implementation assistance. Dealer management software is sophisticated and tightly integrated. Training and support contracts are critically important. I called back to explain this and suggested that, as a compromise he could come to Australia for some one-on-one training. I heard no more, and a week or two later Lee and I were in Spain enjoying a much-needed holiday.

I will never forget the day we were sitting in the sun, on a beautiful beach, looking across the Mediterranean at the misty shores of Morocco in the distance. My cell phone rang, and I could see it was my Yemen prospect. He said, we’ve decided to go ahead with the purchase of your software, and we accept your price of $32,000 USD. What’s our next step? I said I’ll send our account details and when the funds are in our bank we’ll remit the software on CD-ROMS by return mail.

This was the mid-1990s and $32000 US was a considerable sum. I had zero confidence in the money arriving – but it did. We bundled up the software and manuals and shipped the package off to Yemen.

Frank rang to see if he could help them get started, but the answer was no, the system is installed and running satisfactorily. They had a few questions which he was able to help with, and after that we had very little contact. I often wonder if their dealership still stands in this Yemen war zone, and if its polite, clever, and trusting financial controller still survives.

Kuwait

We were approached by the Al Sayer Group’s Toyota dealership in Kuwait for a quote for the supply of our dealer management system. After preliminary discussions, Saleh Al Kout, the Group IT Manager, and Ghassan Kabbara, Information Systems Manager, decided to visit us in Australia.

During their time with us, we provided a deep dive into the system, including the mandatory requirement for left to right reading capability, and Arabic script. All went well and we decided the next step should be a visit by Auto-IT to Kuwait.

Saleh Al Kout and Ghassan Kabbara – Melbourne, 1999.

Michael Damianos accompanied me as we needed to gain a detailed understanding of their compliance requirements, given there is no income tax levied in Kuwait. In fact, the opposite applies. Kuwait is a Petro-State, and all its citizens receive an annual emolument as their share of profit from the state-owned oil industry.

We were to discover the Al Sayer dealership had a monopoly for Toyota vehicle sales in the region, which made them larger by a considerable margin than any Toyota dealership in Australia. And as for the dealership itself, it was opulent. Even the mechanics’ locker room and ablution facilities were gleamingly clean with marble benchtops and shiny fittings befitting a residential bathroom in any first-world country.

We were warned before we left that at this time of year temperatures rise to 50c plus, but there had been seasonal sandstorms that obscured the sun, and everything was coated in a fine layer of dust. This prevailed throughout our visit and in the Toyota dealership, keeping the vehicles clean on the forecourt would have been a nightmare.

Al Sayer had booked our accommodation at The Sheraton Kuwait – Luxury Hotel, and they arranged for us to be picked up from the airport by an Al Sayer driver. At check-in, instead of queuing at the front counter we were ushered to comfortable seating in a cool area and presented with moist towels and cups of tea served in ornate cups. We remained seated until we’d finished with the check-in forms. This was our first experience of traditional Arabic hospitality to travelers, we were impressed.

Upstairs In our rooms there was a welcoming package which included an Al Sayer information tape and a note asking us to play it on the in-room consol before we met with the group principals at the dealership.

The boardroom, not surprisingly, was ostentatious, and a perfect setting for our introduction to the company directors who filed in, dressed in traditional keffiyeh and dishdashi robes. There were polite introductions, light refreshments, and a run through of our itinerary for the next few days. We were informed our accommodation had been taken care of and we would also have the run of the hotel restaurants except for the one on the fourth floor. Our driver would pick us up each morning and we were re- introduced to our two primary contacts, Saleh and Ghassan (above).

The next few days were among the most interesting I’ve experienced in my years of travelling for Auto-IT. We were in sales mode in Kuwait and not expecting our accommodation to be taken care of. The only other country in my travels showing similar magnanimity, (in a slightly different way) was Russia. But that’s a story for another chapter.

One afternoon, while Michael and Ghassan were taking part in a scintillating conversation about debits, credits, and dead stock ratios with the financial controller, I spent a pleasant few hours conversing with Saleh. He was a little older than me, but we had an easy rapport. We covered many topics that afternoon including our families, the Muslim faith, and the Kuwaitis’ experiences during Sadam Hussein’s invasion in 1990.

Saleh and Ghassan visited us in Melbourne one more time but eventually Al Sayah made the decision to write their own dealer management software. We were disappointed, but in some ways not surprised, because the Al Sayer programming department employed roughly twice as many programmers as Auto-IT. Sadly, Saleh passed away a few years ago but Ghassan remains a close friend.

Chapter 7 – Europe, Russia, and The Americas

In chapter 7, I write about my sales journeys in Europe, Russia, and the Americas.

Ken Fife – August, 2024

“Nothing is more certain than change”, I wrote in our client newsletter as I announced the launch of Auto-IT in early 2000. Our merged enterprise was the second largest Dealer Management System supplier by market share in Australasia. We now had offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Wellington, and Kuala Lumpur. We’d come a long way since entering the market in the number nine position ten years ago.

On the surface we exhibited all the trappings of a professional new company, primed and ready to conquer our world, but I was to learn that not everybody in the company shared my enthusiasm. This was particularly true of some of our Sydney people when it became obvious that head office was shifting to Melbourne.

As if clashing cultures weren’t trouble enough, the new goods and services tax was unleashed on Australia at the turn of the millennium, which necessitated major changes to the code of our three Dealer Management Systems (DMS). New programs had to be developed, tested, and installed, and the Government-imposed deadline was a few short weeks away.

So, there were staff integration issues to sort out, some of which could only be solved by moving people on. There was the scramble to launch the new GST programs, and there was another behemoth to take care of. The launch of UNITS®, our new DMS. It had been four years in development, was an avaricious consumer of money and resources, and needed to start earning its keep.

We installed two pilot sites. The selected dealer principals had volunteered, fully aware that their businesses would experience some disruptions. We would be on-site to assist, and the price had been adjusted down to compensate for this.

The crucial month-end rollover came, and with that, we had one very happy client, and one very unhappy one. In the second month, the system stabilized, and it wasn’t long before we had five referenceable customers. It was now time to launch. Unfortunately, the disgruntled client left us, demanding a refund and a negotiated sweetener to appease him for the disruptions.

We were still solvent – just, but the system was beginning to start paying its way, which was just as well as there were rumblings at board level, and I became uneasy about the security of my job as CEO. Michael Damianos put his accountancy and negotiating skills to work and achieved some welcome relief from the tax department. We were subjected to a payment schedule and warned that if we missed any repayments, they would foreclose.

For me, though, these tribulations become insignificant. Midway through the year, my wife Lee was diagnosed with cancer, and what followed was the nightmare of chemotherapy for six months, with Lee unsuccessfully feigning normality in a selfless attempt not to be a burden.

She mustered up the energy to fly with me to the Sydney staff Xmas party at year end where no one was aware her stylish hairdo was a wig disguising her total absence of hair. Thankfully 14 years have passed since then and the cancer is no more, but with all the challenges dished up to us, the year 2000 was indeed our annus horribilis.

The Esanda Era

A few months later, we were exhibiting our software at the Australian Automotive Dealer Association annual conference on the Gold Coast. Simon Abbot, the General Manager of Esanda Finance announced in a seminar that Esanda was joining forces with a start-up DSP to integrate their DMS to Esanda’s software service platform.

Esanda, with Assets of over $10 Billion, was Australia’s leading motor vehicle financier and a wholly owned subsidiary of the ANZ, one of the country’s four largest banks. Esanda planned to roll its web-enabled finance software into a new DMS. This would be a valuable lead generator for the DSP and I was aghast. Why hadn’t we been approached?

A day or two after returning to Melbourne I rang Simon, who I hadn’t previously met, and asked for an appointment. I explained that we would be a more logical partner, based on our size, our reputation, and the fact that we had the most advanced Windows-based DMS in Australia.

Simon was not unfriendly but told me their negotiations with the other party were too far advanced. We went ahead with our face-to-face meeting, but it was short, sweet, and unsuccessful. I was bitterly disappointed.

Three weeks went by before we received a phone call to say my request to broker a partnership had been an agenda item in the Esanda board room and they had decided to reverse their decision in favour of Auto-IT.

In a few short weeks we had negotiated a share sale agreement and Esanda finance, our knight in shining armour, came galloping over the horizon and purchased 25% of the Auto-IT Australia Pty Ltd shares for $1 million dollars. This was March 2002, and our financial worries were over! We moved into larger premises.

Things became interesting once we’d done the deal. Esanda, being a prominent company owned by a large bank, was risk averse and as part of the deal they had earned a seat on our board. They hooked me up with one of their strategists to brainstorm opportunities, and they installed Wayne Rushworth to our permanent staff in the newly created role of Chief Operating Officer. In other words, they were keeping an eagle eye on their investment, which was fine by us.

Our partnership with Esanda lasted a little under two years. During that time, we worked well together, and Wayne in his COO role was a welcome addition to our skill set, but small software companies operating in competitive vertical markets didn’t generate the profits the bank was expecting. There were changes in Esanda’s management and we heard through the grape vine that the new senior executive was unimpressed with the return on their investment.

We suspected the value of Auto-IT would be written down on their balance sheet and they might be amenable to selling. I broached this with Elizabeth Proust, Esanda’s new MD. I proposed we take Auto-IT out of their hands for $850,000 but she said under no circumstances would their board agree to a sale unless they made a profit. The result was an agreement for us to buy our shares back for $1,050,000. The bank had made a $50,000 profit and we owned 100% of our company again. A classic win – win!

We negotiated with Wayne to stay on with us as COO and eleven years later he replaced me as CEO. A footnote to all this was that when we re-purchased our shares from Esanda, their golden era had already passed. The company was sold off a few short years later.

The John Deere Era

There are make or break times in the evolution of most growing companies. Ours came in the summer of 2003 when we signed a deal with John Deere Information Systems (JDIS), granting them exclusive distribution rights to sell our system in North America.

Deere and Company is one of the world’s largest agricultural and construction equipment companies. They have a global reach, and at that time had more than 3,000 dealerships in the United States and Canada.

JDIS had asked several DSPs to pitch for their business and they invited finalists from the USA, Germany, and Australia, to spend two days each with them at their head office in Moline Illinois.

We were last in line and when our time came, Frank Maiolo and I made the journey. We presented to an audience of about 100 people made up of JDIS staff and selected John Deere Dealership representatives. We had to conform to a program designed to give the JDIS experts the opportunity to do a deep dive into our software, and we passed with flying colours. On the first morning I gave a brief rundown of Auto-IT, and after receiving a polite ovation introduced Frank and took my seat. With his warm personality and sharp intellect, Frank performed confidently for the next two days. The audience loved him, and in that time, we made friendships that lasted over many years. We flew home well pleased with ourselves. But we hadn’t won yet.

Our relationship with JDIS  had a stuttering start. I received a phone call from Geoff Andersen, the JDIS Managing Director, to tell us the software stood up well to scrutiny, and his people were confident that Auto-IT could deliver on our promises, but they had decided to go with the German finalist. He said they had been negotiating with them for a long time, whereas we were a late arrival and he admitted we’d taken them by surprise with the depth of functionality in our system. The major factor however was the geographical location of Australia compared to Germany. We were just too far away. So that was that.

San Antonio Texas, at the John Deere User Group conference in 2004. From left back row: Doyle Harris, Barbara Harris, Lori Dalfonso, Lee, me. Front row: Bruce Dalfonso, Gail Mueller, Kevin Mueller. 

Until a week or two later I received another call, saying negotiations with the German company had fallen through. They proposed they would visit us to see if we could negotiate a deal. Geoff Anderson duly arrived accompanied by David Schaeffer, a John Deere strategist, to help with negotiation.

We hosted them in Melbourne for five days, by which time we had negotiated a deal and signed a two-page letter setting out the terms of our agreement. We would grant JDIS the sole right to sell, install and support our DMS to their dealers in USA and Canada. We agreed on the license and support pricing. They also negotiated the rights for JDIS to purchase the source code outright at any time up to an agreed final date at which time the right would expire. They also agreed we could sell our software in North America to any non-John Deere competitor.

We shook hands, signed the Terms Letter, had a celebratory dinner and our new friends flew back to the US.

Then it was time for the lawyers to become involved. Four or five months and hundreds of thousands of dollars later, we finally executed an eighty-two-page contract. Not surprisingly, after all that time, not one material clause in the original Terms Letter had changed!

Chapter 6 – The JDIS Years

The next period in Auto-IT’s history took us to every continent except Antarctica as we pursued opportunities to sell our DMS within the John Deere dealer network.

Ken Fife – May, 2024

In 1998 Frank began searching for a database system we could work with to enable the development of a new Windows®-based DMS. We needed to stay ahead in the technology race. We held a meeting to discuss the pros and cons of taking on another scary new project and there was no dissension. We all wanted to forge ahead. Frank would design it, Michael would keep a watchful eye on progress and intercede if he thought we were overreaching ourselves, and I would do my best to ensure the client list continued to grow to help fund the wages of our ever-increasing staff.

The new DMS would be called UNITS® because large items such as cars, trucks, tractors, and agricultural machinery are known as units in dealership language until configured to suit the wishes of the buyer. Frank employed some new programmers to write test programs but we couldn’t afford a system architect, nor expensive programming aids or test tools. He plastered the walls of his office with rolls of printer paper inscribed with data function diagrams, flow charts, business function rules and other unintelligible stuff designed to crystallise the way forward.

And so began another expensive four-year development program executed on a shoestring. We would need to make sacrifices.

The Millenium Bug

Meanwhile, there were other things to think of. Most people born before 1990 will remember the anguish around the millennium bug.

To explain, we need to go back in time. It was normal when writing programs in the 60s and 70s, to use two-digit date fields. In those days computer memory and disk storage were astronomically expensive and it made economic sense to design software programs sparingly. This would mean when the clock ticked over at midnight on New Year’s Eve 1999, computer systems with two digit date fields would revert to the year 1900 instead of 2000. The problem wasn’t confined to application software either as many hardware operating systems were also susceptible. Whipped up by the press, people weren’t sure of the effect this would have as they read warnings of elevators jamming mid floor and planes falling out of the sky. As it happened, midnight on the due date was the biggest anti-climax of all time. Nothing undue happened!

PACE 2000 wasn’t affected because Frank had foreseen the problem in the design phase in 1992, and our systems employed four-digit date fields. But without exception, our major competitors had character-based software with two-digit date fields. Paradoxically, this presented them with a windfall from the fees they charged their clients to upgrade their systems.

We also had a windfall in Indonesia where we were beginning to make sales. We were contacted by Mercedes-Benz and asked if we could prove that our software was compliant. After hearing our affirmative answer, they asked for a quote to computerise their three company-owned dealerships in Jakarta.

Our price was accepted without argument subject to two provisos. We had to sign a document guaranteeing Y2K compliance, and their three dealerships had to be processing live no later than one month before midnight on 31st December, 1999.

All went well and I look back fondly on the opportunity presented to us to add these three prestigious businesses to our customer base in one easy and profitable transaction.

Merger

Our growing business was cash strapped as we fought for a share of a very competitive market. I had read that market dominance is critical, and that only companies holding first or second position in any market can survive long term.

We discussed this at board level and agreed we should seek to merge with a competitor, with the proviso there needed to be synergistic and economic advantage in doing so. One plus one had to equal more than two.

I approached Ted Ainsworth, the owner of Systime – the second largest DSP in Australia. The principal asset we brought to the table was our commitment to the development of a Windows®-based DMS. The meeting was cordial as we discussed the proposal, and it appeared a deal could be done. We agreed that I would run the merged entity but when we finally got down to the definition of how the decision process would work, it was obvious Ted couldn’t see himself relinquishing control, so we amicably ceased negotiations. Systime was sold to an offshore DSP about 12 months later.

I reached out to Newmans Information Services, the next most appealing option. This DSP was established by Martin Newman, the owner of a prominent car dealership in Sydney. We met on neutral ground in the Qantas lounge at Sydney Airport. That first meeting lasted less than an hour but we achieved a lot. We concurred on the win-win possibilities and agreed that subject to due diligence, a merger would suit the aspirations of both companies.

A few months later in April 2000, the deal was consummated. We registered a new company called Auto-IT Australia Pty Ltd and most importantly, we could now truthfully claim to be the second biggest DSP in Australia and New Zealand by market share.

End of the Road for KGM Management

KGM had been active for 12 years. In that time, we’d self-funded the writing of a DMS and sold it to more that 200 dealerships. Some of these had been small country businesses selling cars, trucks or tractors, but many more had been very large businesses including the Di Vergilio chain of auto dealers in Perth, Federal Auto in Malaysia, and others. Practically all the dealers in Brunei were running PACE 2000 and in latter years we’d never lost a deal due to the inability of our software to compete successfully with the competition. This experience was to stand us in good stead during the design phase of UNITS®, our next generation DMS.

Before I close the KGM chapter, heartfelt tributes are due to the following talented staff members who were with us throughout the KGM years and some of whom stayed with us for the next 23 years of our Auto-IT iteration.

Frank Maiolo, Donna Carter, Jackie Fisher, Rohan Duncan, Chew Wan Ho, York Wai Wong, Peter Van Der Meer, Di Hastings, Peter Fritz, Clive Mills, Peter Hoy, Matthew Avadia, Gil and Lorna Earnshaw, and many others.

I’d worked for three companies since my arrival in Australia in 1983, and they’d all become insolvent. Was I a manifestation of the albatross in Coleridge’s Rhyme of The Ancient Mariner? I’d noticed a few raised eyebrows among contacts in my business network and couldn’t afford to let it happen again.

My accountant Michael Damianos suggested we have a chat.

I had met Michael three years earlier in the Bull Frog restaurant in Carlton? The occasion was a periodic get together of a group of Australians and Australian born Greeks who’d been close friends since primary school. I was there because Lee was part of the group.

Michael was managing partner of Hill Innes and Dooley, a management accounting practice. The firm had an ancillary bureau service serving clients from an in house minicomputer. He put a proposition to me. “We’ve got some good IT people and good infrastructure here, why don’t you join us and help establish a computer solutions company?” I looked around their beautiful premises. “Can I have an office?” He nodded. “What about a car park?” He nodded again. I was hooked. With the important stuff out of the way we hammered out the remaining details and a successful 35 year business partnership was consummated with a handshake.

Michael and I remain friends to this day, we are semi-retired and meet weekly for a coffee in Carlton. Just 2 old blokes reminiscing about the good old days, the world’s problems, and reflecting on our growing families. We may have engaged in one or two raised voice conversations over the years but in all the time we’ve known each other we’ve never had an argument.

We decided to use my registered business name KGM Management for the new enterprise. It was important to present it as a separate entity to the accounting firm and also, as I was bringing my established customers onto the books it would demonstrate some continuity in our relationship.

Some years before, HID had won a contract with Toyota Australia to write a Dealer Management System for their retail franchisees. It also had to interface with Toyota’s distribution network. The system was called HIDAS, (HID Accounting System,) and there were a number of large Toyota dealers across Australia relying on HIDAS to run their businesses. These would represent an opportunity for KGM Management further down the track to convert to a more affordable platform.

Another important element in the new enterprise was HID’s Computer Services Manager, Frank Maiolo. Frank’s family had immigrated to Australia from Calabria when he was 14 years old. He spoke no English when they landed but with his off the charts intelligence it took him no time to adapt to his new country, and to graduate with finance, accounting, and computer science qualifications. He went on to pursue what was to become a stellar career in IT.

I’m proud to say that on that day in the summer of 1988, KGM reinvented itself. The main protagonists would be an unlikely group of three people who worked together to achieve great things. Responsibility for business development would lie with me, a New Zealander in a mid-life crisis. The computer services expert was Frank, an ethnic Italian, and Michael an ethnic Greek, was in charge of all matters financial.

PACE 2000

The revitalised KGM was ready for business. I’d re-employed Donna Carter who had worked so well with me in my Intelligence days. Donna could attend to account management of my CBA customers who’d stuck with me over the years and she could also sell software to oil industry customers. Frank had written an accounting package for service stations called EKW. HID were supplying accounting and management services for more than 600 service stations throughout Australia so it was worthwhile exploring the opportunity to convert these clients onto a computerised system.

The prime target however was the more substantial Automotive dealer market. It had been 10 years since HID had won the Toyota Dealer Management System (DMS) contract. There had been significant sales success against stiff opposition in the early years, but lack of marketing effort in later years had seen the interest in HIDAS fall away while market competitors continued to mop up. Technology had moved on, however, and we saw an opportunity for KGM to re-enter the dealer market by promoting the price advantage afforded by PC networking technology.

Up until now HIDAS had been installed on Data General Minicomputers.  A typical implementation of a file server with associated printers and terminals had an entry level of $150,000 to $250,000.

Shortly after I teamed up with Michael, Frank experimented with converting the HIDAS application from COBOL to a new framework called MICRO FOCUS COBOL. This was touted as executable on PC networks but there were issues and we nearly lost a large dealership customer because of its unreliability. We put our heads together and I asked Frank if he was up for managing the development of a fully functional DMS in the Dataflex language. Frank smiled, I could tell by his demeanour that nothing would please him more. Then he said, “But it won’t be cheap; we’ll have to convince Michael”. Michael needed no convincing, and I breathed a sigh of relief because being first to market would give us an advantage. Best of all, Frank would have to worry about the intricacies of the design process and Michael would have to worry about how we’d pay for it. All I had to do was worry about what to do with the money we’d make!

We increased our programming staff and set out on the hazardous endeavour of producing a new DMS. We decided to name it PACE 2000 in recognition of the forthcoming millennium.

Warning. This paragraph contains computer speak! Writing a DMS is a risky process and documented examples abound of companies burning small fortunes on failed attempts to bring a new DMS to market. It takes a full ERP system to run a dealership. (ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning to achieve integrated management of resource processes in real time). It’s as complicated as it sounds but by achieving this goal, we would have a significant financial advantage over companies competing with us on distributed networks. (In distributed networks all the processing is carried out in the main computer and the information is displayed on dumb terminals). With local area networks (LANS) the processing is carried out on each individual workstation. This significantly reduces the amount of processing power required, with a consequential reduction in hardware investment.

Meanwhile, sales were relatively slim as the service station software didn’t really take off and Donna found dealing with some of the chauvinistic oil industry operators a daunting task. She was fuming when she returned to the office one day, after one of her prospects had given her a friendly pat on the bottom, which had left an oily handprint on her white skirt! Things were different in those days!

We made some profitable upgrade sales to our Data General customers and work was coming in from support fees for my PC network clients, but cash flow was tight. An irreverent staff member at that time, when asked by a customer what KGM stands for, said, “It means Ken Gets the Money.” But nothing could have been further from the truth! Extra programming staff made it prudent for me to take a salary cut and there were times when I lay awake at night wondering how we’d meet our payroll obligations. I imagine Michael had the same concerns but he never demurred in his support. Programming effort intensified, and late in 1992 PACE 2000 was launched.

At that time there were 9 companies selling a DMS to the automotive trade in Australia, but KGM – the smallest and latest to enter the market – was the first to launch a fully integrated, modular, PC-based LAN system. We would have to significantly increase our sales efforts, though, if we were to remain solvent. We conducted a number of road shows. These events were reasonably well attended and by the end of 1993 we had 12 referenceable dealerships on the new system, but we needed to supercharge our growth. We advertised for sales and installation agents and were able to enter into long term relationships with some really good people. Our new business sales increased exponentially and 3 years after launch we had a sound reputation and had increased our user tally to 104 dealerships. One of these new clients was Federal Auto, the Volvo car distributor in Malaysia.

In 1995 Lee and I holidayed at Tioman Island in Malaysia. We spent a few days in Kuala Lumpur on the way home and one evening had a meal in an Indian restaurant called Bangles. Business was slow and the friendly restaurant owner engaged us in conversation. On a whim, I told him we were looking to appoint an agent in Malaysia, and did he have any contacts in the computer industry? He said, “Come back here tomorrow for lunch and I’ll introduce you to somebody.” We returned the next day convinced we were wasting our time but met a sophisticated Olivetti sales manager who introduced himself as Avadiar. He and an associate listened intently as I described KGM’s business and what an agency would entail. When they left, he told me he would be in touch. I was confident we had wasted our time, but we’d eaten a stunning meal, and the restaurant owner wouldn’t dream of accepting payment.

Some weeks later, Avadiar contacted me and informed me he’d resigned from Olivetti and founded a new company called IT-Partners. He wanted to become an agent and he could introduce us to a good lead we could work on together. The upshot was a very successful partnership was formed, and nine months later we found ourselves attending an elaborate signing ceremony to celebrate the purchase of PACE 2000 for the automation of the 13 dealerships owned by Volvo Malaysia.

They certainly knew how to put on a function in Malaysia in those days. There were TV cameras and journalists, and speeches. When the time came for us to sign the agreement in triplicate, three stunningly beautiful girls walked in, in single file, dressed in Malay native costume, each carrying a blue Parker fountain pen with a gold nib, nestling on a red cushion. A girl took up station behind each of the 3 signatories. They were Avadiar from IT Partners, the Managing Director of Volvo Malaysia, and me. We signed the documents, and with a flourish each girl blotted the signatures and handed us the pen as a keepsake. We then adjourned for a cup of tea and cakes before leaving. That evening we watched the ceremony in a news clip on prime time TV, and of course our photos were in the Straits Times the next morning.

Me on the left. MD of Volvo Malaysia, centre, Mathew Avadiar from IT Partners, right.

By the end of 1998, five years after launch, PACE 2000 had well and truly come of age. We had 150 individual dealerships using our system in Australia, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, and Cambodia. These dealerships sold and distributed cars, trucks, and agricultural machinery. The system was being implemented on DOS and Unix platforms and was executable in both English and the Bahasa languages.

We’d all worked hard to take our company forward on a low budget in such a short space of time, but without a doubt, the most credit is attributable to Frank. He’d produced well designed multi-functioned software that worked. He’d achieved this miracle in a remarkably brief timeframe, and the system was modular so it could work equally well in large and small businesses alike.

Michael Damianos and his daughter, Denise, left – Frank Maiolo and his daughter, Amy, right.

In Australia and Southeast Asia we could now compete technologically against any of our competitors in the markets we chose to operate in, and there was truth in our claim that we were the fastest growing Dealer System Provider (DSP) in Australia.

But as is so often the case, there was a looming threat. It came in the form of Microsoft Windows and if we were to maintain our claim as the fastest growing DSP in the market, we’d have to rewrite the whole system. Could we possibly justify the risk and the expense…?

Ken Fife – October 2023

My employment as a salesperson for ORAD computers lasted only ten months but it was an excellent introduction to working and surviving in an urban environment, and I wasn’t unhappy that fate had tipped me into computer sales.

I’d learned that in the pre-sale cycle, success depends on your honesty and on spending most of your time listening to your customer and virtually no time waxing lyrical about your solution. l also learned that technical staff have a particularly jaundiced view of salespeople who promise the world, but if you win them over, everyone benefits.

The PC Revolution – A Brief History

Warning: This is really boring. If you abhor computer jargon, please skip this paragraph.

Up until the late seventies the vast majority of computer workstations were dumb terminals remotely attached to powerful mainframes, or to smaller but horrendously expensive, minicomputers. The Personal PC revolution was in its infancy when I came to Australia and we were taught that personal computers utilising the new Z80 intelligent processors and CP/M operating systems (Control Program Monitor), were the key to the future, and a cost-effective way of replacing dumb terminals.

The PCs we sold were NEC APC, Apricot, Sperry and Olivetti, and the networks were HINet, Token Ring, and eventually an early version of Novel. By the mid-eighties the IBM XT. 8 bit PC, was unveiled. These could be configured with one or two floppy drives, a 10 MB hard drive and 64k of RAM. As the market matured it evolved into a three-horse race between IBM, Compaq, and Apple.

IBM PCs contained the new Intel 8080 processor, and CP/M was abandoned in favour of Microsoft’s MS DOS (Microsoft Operating system) licensed as PC DOS by IBM. Apple, in its inimitable fashion, followed its own destiny with their Motorola processors and MAC OS operating system.

Intelligence

ORAD was struggling and In August 1984 the company succumbed to the inevitable, and the network department was sold to Intelligence Australia. Most of us kept our jobs with the new company, and we were pleased Intelligence had a more up to date outlook, and a more sophisticated range of multi-user software solutions to sell.

In this period some of the mid-range computer companies had experienced meteoric rises – and falls. Down at the personal computer level though, the marketplace was dynamic, with startups and insolvencies commonplace.

For my part, I now found myself selling a 4GL (4th Generation Language) solution called CBA, together with another package called ILAS (Intelligence Legal Accounting Software). My company, KGM Management, now acted in a sales agency capacity and to keep me in front of the prospects Intelligence employed Lee’s sister, Beverly, to handle my general secretarial duties, and I employed Donna Carter, who was more computer literate than me, and an excellent demonstrator.

The three of us were a great team, and in one eight-month period we sold ILAS, together with associated networks, to ten Melbourne legal firms.

Life was good until one morning on 18th January 1988, I received an early morning phone call advising me that Intelligence was about to go into voluntary administration. This company had treated me incredibly well and the news was a blow. My second Job had lasted 3 ½ years, a big improvement on my 10 months with ORAD, but disappointing, nevertheless.

Computer Networks

A week or two later with perfect timing for me, an advertisement appeared in the Melbourne Age seeking a General Manager to set up and run the Melbourne branch of a Sydney startup company called Computer Networks. I couldn’t believe my luck; this would be the perfect job if I could snare it. I forwarded my resume, together with a letter explaining the circumstances of my departure from Intelligence, I added the sweetener that I could possibly bring three key staff with me due to the collapse of Intelligence.

On 26th of February I received a formal offer for the advertised position at a starting salary of $60,000, (not too bad at that time) plus entertainment and car allowances. Computer Networks had also agreed to my request to attend their board meetings to represent the Melbourne Branch. Sadly though, there never were any board meetings to attend, and this should have alerted me to the looming crisis.

My initial responsibility was to submit a high level business plan supported by budgets, to locate appropriate premisses, and to employ the three ex-Intelligence people. They were Beverly, Steve Tickell in the network sales role, and Ian Hadley as the network implementation and support specialist.

My first task was to locate premises. It didn’t take long to send a portfolio of options to the MD in Sydney, and the instruction came back to negotiate the rental for the most prestigious one. This was situated in the atrium of a new high rise building in St Kilda Road. My previous employment since landing in Australia had been with two small, cash strapped companies. For my new employer however, money appeared to be no object.

The Computer Networks demonstration area, 1988.

The MD of Computer Networks was a brilliant young New Zealander who had received financial backing from his family, to set up a hi tech sales and distribution business in Australia. His imagination, energy, and marketing skills knew no bounds and in a remarkably short time, he’d set up a manufacturing facility to assemble PC clones from imported components. He’d created attractive marketing material, and by the time we’d fixed the signage on our new premisses, boxes of workstations and networking equipment were arriving. Now it was time to start selling.

Our job was to target major account clients. I decided to run a seminar to launch the arrival of our new company in Melbourne. The agenda would be to highlight our technology and the benefits we were able to offer to public accounting firms and legal practices. The marketing campaign would revolve around a fictional judge, warning of the folly of not attending.

We printed off a large number of brochures, and Lee’s father accepted my offer to pay him generously if he would dress up in a gown and wig and deliver the brochures to the reception desks of selected large firms in the Melbourne CBD.

Judge Robbie

He was up for the challenge and co-opted one of his mates from the golf club to be his driver and assist in the delivery process. The two men must have created quite a stir as they did their rounds in the top end of town because the campaign certainly worked and we were forced to rent larger premises for the seminar. When the event was over and the champagne glasses cleared away, we had a healthy pile of business cards to follow up on, and our new enterprise was successfully launched.

The following months were rewarding for our small crew. We were meeting our sales targets, we enjoyed working together in our beautiful new premises, and in early July, the company flew us to Sydney to celebrate the end of the financial year. We were escorted around their offices, and the new computer assembly facility. We were wined and dined, regaled with congratulatory speeches, and the champagne and cocktails flowed well into the night.

Two months later it was time for a break and Lee and I took a short holiday at a remote beach in the Philippines. On the return journey, we buckled ourselves into our Qantas seats in preparation for take-off. The hostess offered me a Sydney Morning Herald and started chatting with Lee while I opened the paper. She must have been alarmed at the look on my face.  “Are you alright sir?” she asked. I didn’t answer.  I handed the paper to Lee and pointed at the double column advertisement in the classified section.

Computer Networks Pty. Ltd. Lane Cove Sydney. (IN LIQUIDATION). it read. The business and assets are being offered for sale. At the present time it is not known what funds will be available for unsecured creditors. Signed E. G. CHANT, LIQUIDATOR. Deloitte Haskins + Sells.

I had departed Australia as Melbourne General Manager of Computer Networks and was returning home ten days later as an out of work unsecured creditor. The company wasn’t even in receivership, the business was dead! Thankfully when we arrived home, I found that Beverly and her dad had removed my car from the company car park, together with KGM Management’s precious customer files.

Computer Networks was liquidated on 23rd September 1988. I’d been in Australia for 5 ½ years and by my standards had precious little to show for it.

Ken Fife – August 2023

After landing in Melbourne, I ticked the box on the immigration form to indicate I intended to remain permanently in Australia. The customs official showed no interest, he scribbled something on the card and shooed me through to the arrival hall.

My first impression as I walked outside was the pleasant summer temperature and the superior quality of the vehicles in the car park.

Within 3 weeks Lee and I had found a house and paid $62,000 cash for it, much to the delight of the vendor who politely asked if we’d won tatts lotto or something. We signed on the condition we could take possession within 7 days. The house was in a middle-ring suburb about 30 minutes North of the CBD and for the first time in my life, I had a permanent address in a street of houses.

I was now officially a “townie.” A derogatory term from where I’d come from, and something a rural person would never aspire to. Little did I know that this new townie, with his new partner, Lee, would be living in the same house in the same street of houses for the next forty years. In addition, as a property owner, I qualified after three months, for inclusion on the electoral roll and henceforth under Australia’s compulsory voting laws, would be fined if I failed to cast my vote in Federal and Local Body elections. Such was the flexible immigration relationship existing between our two countries in 1983.

By purchasing a modest property I’d ticked off the first of my goals, now it was time to find a way to pay the bills.

I was hopeful my NZ Rural Valuers registration certificate would have currency, but on investigation found it wouldn’t and I’d have to spend 4 years as a cadet, on the coattails of a registered Australian valuer. That wasn’t for me.

I answered an advertisement for a job with a real estate agent without luck. It appeared the skills of my previous life were of little value in the city. Perhaps I could get a truck driving job. I studied the local road code and booked an appointment at the testing centre. I fronted up with my NZ Heavy traffic license and my Farm bike license, where I sat at a computer and undertook an online exam, then a kindly old gentleman took me through an oral exam and it was time for the eye test. This potentially was a problem because as the result of a farm accident, I am permanently blind in one eye. I held the card over my right eye with my right hand and scored perfectly when reading the chart with my left eye. I then changed hands and covered my right eye with my left hand and read the chart again with my left eye. Perfect score once again. I’d passed the tests and in Australia was now licensed to drive a car, a passenger bus, a motorbike, and an 18-wheel semi-trailer.

Luckily for the citizens of Victoria, I didn’t need to fall back on a driving job and have never had occasion in Australia to drive anything larger than a four-door sedan.

A few weeks went by. I saw an advertisement one Sunday night on TV for a sales course on how to sell computers. On the TV, an earnest young man planted an acorn, and the next screen depicted him as a fully grown salesman standing beside an oak tree in an expensive suit and tie, clearly enjoying the fruits of his computer sales success. The ad was run by the Control Data Institute, a global computer company, and they were guaranteeing to find employment for all their graduates.

The cost was $12,000 for a 16-week course, a not insubstantial amount at the time. I filled in the application form, sent it off with my resume, and in due course received a phone call inviting me to sit the intelligence and aptitude tests. These were very detailed and attended by about 60 people. Twelve hopefuls including me were eventually selected but it was obvious when we met, the acceptance criteria had a lot more to do with our ability to pay the $12,000, than it did with the candidates’ intelligence and aptitude.

For me, the course proved to be an excellent investment. We were worked hard with 7 am starts and weekly assignments which necessitated studying over the weekends to meet Monday morning deadlines. Looking back, the computer studies were valuable to me as a complete rookie but focussed far too much on outdated technology. The sales subjects though were brilliant. We were psychologically tested and coached through roll plays and taught how to create rapport and listen and react to customers’ needs. When we were released into the workplace we were bristling with unjustified confidence. Sadly, the promised employment in multi-national computer companies didn’t materialise and we were placed in small microcomputer companies, most of which were scrambling to survive in an overcrowded marketplace.

As a condition of graduation, we were required to write a thesis on various topics selected by our tutors. Mine was a comparison between LINC and FOCUS, two newly emerging 4th-generation database languages. I wasn’t trained in any of this stuff of course. I’d never cut a line of code except in some practical tests during my studies at the institute, but I did the research and handed in a treatise which must have been credible because I did manage to graduate.

A day or two later the moderator of our course called me and announced excitedly that the state manager for Control Data (now Unisys) wanted to see me. We both thought I was going to be offered a sales job in this high-profile company. When I was ushered into the manager’s office, I noticed a copy of my thesis on his desk. He said, “I’m sure you know, LINC was developed by Control Data, but my sales guys are not convinced it’s as good as we are being told. Could we pay you to undertake a critical analysis with your recommendations for us please?” He wasn’t offering me a sales job; he’d assumed I had a computer science degree, and my opinion was worth paying for. That’s when I realised how shallow the computer industry was at the time. If he’d asked me to train a dog or shear some sheep, I’d have been happy to comply but when I explained my background, we were both embarrassed and the interview was over.

Around the time I was completing the course, there was a momentous event unfolding. I was driving to the institute early on September 26th, 1983, when the wing-keeled yacht Australia II edged out the American yacht Liberty II and stole the America’s Cup from the New York Yacht Club. They had never been beaten for 132 years so this win by a yacht from down under was nothing short of a miracle. As a keen follower of the America’s Cup, I was elated, and when John Raedler the commentator called out “Australia has won, history has been made, stand up Australia!” I’m embarrassed to say I pulled over to the side of St Kilda Road and waved my hands in the air beside my car to the bewilderment of other commuters who tooted and made rude signs at me as they drove past.

ORAD Computers

My first job in Australia was selling computer networks and PCs for ORAD Computers. ORAD had been supplying and supporting mechanical accounting machines for more than a decade.

Mechanical Business Machine of the 1960s and 70s

They had a large number of clients but were under siege from microcomputer technology and were in decline. In an effort to reinvent the company the owners had appointed a new managing director, a new sales manager, and three new salespeople one of whom was me. The MD in a past life had been selling mainframes for a multi-national. He was an old fashioned, glib salesman who knew all the tricks and was the antithesis of the role model we’d been trained to aspire to. He was a big guy who after a long lunch would close his office door and, on most days, could be heard snoring gently until midafternoon.

The sales manager was capable and street smart. An interesting character who I suspected had a gambling problem. He was a good mentor though and was responsible for kindling my interest in local area networks which was to stand me in good stead in the future.

We salespeople were assigned geographical territories and were expected to cold call ORAD’s accounting machine clients, in an effort to convert them to modern technology. The customer base had been well worked over though and the pickings were slim.

The office itself was fitted out in dark colours and had no external windows. In this gloomy environment we sat at our desks under fluorescent lighting and worked the phones.  An unforgiving introduction to the real world of selling with nowhere to hide at Monday morning sales meetings. Week by week my card index system evolved into a valuable list of contacts and information. I kept this locked in my briefcase in case I was escorted out at short notice due to lack of results. That day didn’t come however because the deals started to dribble in and my contact list continued to grow.

There was an upside too. I got on well with my workmates and in those days long Friday lunches were the norm. Six months passed and I’d managed to sell some large computer networks into two private hospitals and was earning good commissions but ORAD was in its death throes. The engineering support division of the business was sold off to Olivetti, The MD and sales manager were made redundant, and the less profitable sales and support arm was purchased by a company called Intelligence.

Intelligence Australia

We continued to sell Local Area Networks (LANs) but our offering was augmented by a 4GL accounting package from NZ known as CBA. This enabled us to sell total solutions and broadened our target market. I was now earning good money and thankful for the chain of events that had lured me into computer sales.

Intelligence Australia’s management style was a breath of fresh air and before long, well pleased with my income but not with my tax burden, I decided to resign. I needed to find a way to run a business of my own so explained my dilemma to David Milward the MD of Intelligence. David talked me out of moving on and in August 1984 we hammered out an agreement. I was removed from the company payroll and reverted to invoicing Intelligence for 30% of the gross profit of everything I sold. I now had a business of my own and the number of contacts in my prospecting system continued to grow.

KGM Management

A rival computer company in south Melbourne was holding a seminar showcasing their new Novel networking products. I needed to check it out but wouldn’t be welcome if they knew I was a competitor.

An executive in the queue in front of me introduced himself to the seminar host as a partner from KMG Hungerford. This was a top tier accounting firm and he was enthusiastically welcomed. I was impressed!

When my turn came, I said I was a Management Consultant from KMG and received the same reception.

Several weeks later I registered a new company called KGM Management and traded successfully under that name for the next 15 years because after all, who would take the time to differentiate between KMG and KGM?

Still living in the same street of houses, 40 years on.

Next month, chapter two of A Street of Houses will be delivered to your inbox.

Ken Fife – July 2023

Our divorce was finalised in NZ in November 1982.

Early in 1983 I was getting restless and began weighing up my options. Rosie had purchased a new house in Invercargill and was getting on with her life. The two youngest children were with her while they finished their schooling, and Nicola, our oldest, was attending university in Christchurch.

I decided to move to Australia and start a new life.

I arranged with an Invercargill agent to find a tenant for my house in Manapouri and to auction its contents. I loaded the boot of my car with a few personal items, and with mixed feelings, set out on the seven-hour drive through the night from Manapouri to Christchurch. I arrived at my sister Margaret’s house as day was breaking and stayed for two or three days. Just long enough to sell my car and make final arrangements, before boarding a flight to Melbourne.

I’d never lived in a city before, let alone one as big as Melbourne. I had no idea what lay ahead but like a modern-day Dick Wittington, had no doubt I’d find a way to float to the top.

Before leaving NZ, I made a hard-edged plan. I’d purchase a modest house, buy investment property with the remainder of my capital, and survive solely on what I could earn from finding work. 

I arrived at Tullamarine airport on a sunny afternoon on the 27th of March 1983, my 44th birthday.

End of Book One.

Watch your inbox for the first chapter of my second book. I’ve called it, “A Street of Houses,” and hope to publish it next week. Thank you for your support and encouragement to date.

Kind regards – Ken Fife  

e returned to NZ to be faced with a tsunami of problems which by 1983 resulted in the dissolution of our marriage and an end to my life as a farmer, but I’m getting ahead of my story.

I was born with an innate resilience so coped well with the dramas on the Fijian cattle ranch. Most of the time I enjoyed the challenges and the satisfaction that comes with solving problems, and life in Fiji had many consolations.

Expat friends in Suva had bought a cruising catamaran and we spent occasional weekends sailing or working on their yacht. Over the past two years, we had hosted politicians and officials from both NZ and Fiji. We had cajoled NZ army helicopters into assisting with mustering and fence line laying projects. We sipped cocktails on a NZ Navy Frigate and were interviewed by both Fiji radio, and TV NZ for their 60 Minutes program.

The good outweighed the bad, but the relentless hours, the isolation, and the necessity for our family to spend so much time away from each other had taken its toll. We were big fish in a very small pond, now it was time to return to New Zealand.

Cairn Peak

Our farm was a picture when we arrived home in January 1981. It was early summer, there had been plenty of rain, the hay sheds were full, the crops were looking promising and the pastures were beautifully green with stock feed in abundance.  John Robins our interim manager, together with our staff, had done an excellent job.

We were presented with the stock performance figures and pleasingly, 6,000 lambs had been produced from our 5,000 breeding ewes, and the long-term weather forecasts pointed to a good fattening season for our lambs and beef cattle.

Since our acquisition of the farm in 1964 Cairn Peak had transformed from an ugly duckling to a desirable property, and our burgeoning forestry business had transferred 2,000 acres of marginal land into a profitable industry.

Bill Piercy, together with Rosie and myself had been equal business partners since 1966. Bill had a 50% share, and we had 25% each. I was the resident manager and Bill was a public accountant running his own business in Gore, 70kms away. Up until now, we’d had an easy relationship, and I had run the property without interference. However, our partnership agreement was due to expire on 1st June 1981 at which time it would be up for renegotiation.

Six years earlier in June 1975 I had written to Bill notifying him, that on the expiry of the agreement Rosie and I would be exercising our option to withdraw. Bill had not responded, so now with less than 6 months to go, we had some negotiating to do. Over the intervening years, I had obtained two qualifications. I was now a registered Farm Management Consultant and a member of the NZ Society of Farm Management. I had also passed the exams entitling me to practice as a Registered Rural Valuer.

I called a partnership meeting and tabled an aerial photograph of our sprawling property. I had drawn a line bisecting the photograph and explained to Bill why I thought this was a fair attempt at equally dividing our holding. The individual farms on each side had a fair balance of flat and hilly terrain and each had appropriate farm infrastructure.  To back up the integrity of the offer I said I would be comfortable for him to choose which of the two properties he preferred to own. I could tell by his demeanour that up until now he’d never confronted the reality that our partnership had run its course. He blustered and said the offer was ludicrous. He would draw a line on the map in due course, and that he would also have first choice of which parcel would be his.

Trouble was brewing!

Some weeks later he produced a map indicating an insultingly unrealistic portion to be allocated to us with the balance of the title to revert to him and his family.

That was the last time we engaged in a cordial conversation.

For the next 6 months, Rosie and I were to live on the farm under a cloud of disillusionment as Bill’s lawyer and our lawyer attempted to broker an outcome to keep us out of court.

It was finally agreed that each party would appoint a valuer, and an independent arbitrator would be engaged if the valuers couldn’t agree. Once the value was settled, Bill would have first option to purchase the going concern and if he defaulted, Rosie and I would be given the same opportunity.

The valuation went ahead and the valuers agreed, without the need to resort to arbitration. Bill had 90 days, and settlement was set for 23rd December 1981. In mid-October, his lawyer wrote with the news that Bill was adament he had the finance organised for settlement day and he preferred I step down as manager,and leave the farm immediately. We were thankful for closure and with mixed feelings, packed up and moved to our holiday house in Manapouri.

We weren’t surprised when on 23rd December Bill couldn’t come up with the money, but he said it was a technicality, he needed another 30 days and reluctantly acknowledged this would trigger the 17% late payment penalty fee.

Finally, at 4 pm on 25th January 1982, the phone rang in Manapouri. Our solicitor said, “congratulations, you are now millionaires, what do you want me to do with the money?” I was 42, Rosie was 39, and for the first time since I was 15 years old, I was not involved in the farming industry. I was unemployed!

Final Outcome

Bill was not a farmer. He’d had a romantic notion of riding stock horses, and comparing notes with other farmers on a Friday night in the Dipton pub. He’d put two of his sons, both town boys, through a diploma course in an agricultural college and the family battled on for a few short years  before finally succumbing to a mortgage default. The property has since been broken up and sold to neighboring farmers, and sadly at a very young age bill succumbed to cancer. ,

Our falling out had produced no winners.

Moving on

Before our sojourn in Fiji, we had purchased a holiday house in a sleepy village called Manapouri which lies adjacent to the Fiordland National Park. Lake Manapouri is surrounded by mountains that are snow-capped in winter and the lake itself is frequently draped in wispy mist which makes it hauntingly beautiful.

According to Wikipedia, “Fiordland National Park covers an area of 12,000 square km, making it one of the largest national parks in the world.

Lake Manapouri

It is famous for its deep fiords, stunning alpine lakes, waterfalls, rainforest, and unique wildlife. Within the fiords, you can find dolphins, New Zealand fur seals, fiordland crested penguins, and the occasional whale.” There is no mention in the brochures of the ecological threat to the rain forest caused by overgrazing from introduced animals, particularly, possums from Australia, and red deer from the UK.

In the 1970s the establishment of a venison export market, created a new industry in Fordland, and a potential solution to the noxious animal problem. There was a ready sale at mouth-watering prices, for venison shot by ground hunters, and by shooters in helicopters, scouring the mountain ranges and adjoining tussock country.

The introduction of rigorous meat inspection standards eventually slowed down the venison trade, but the recovery industry still thrived, as focus shifted to the capture of live deer from two sources, trapping in the rain forest, or netting from helicopters in the tussock country above the bush line.

Three of us shot these deer in the rain forest over three days, carried them out on our backs to the safe in the picture, where they were transported out to the lake by the pack horses. Hunter Shaw on the left was a professional meat hunter, I’m holding the horse.

Deer Trapping

My Friend Lance Shaw was a deer trapper and I helped him occasionally with building traps and recovering captured animals. These traps were made of wire netting too high for the deer to jump over. The pens when built were about 20 yards long, and constructed so that deer using the game trails, couldn’t see the netting hidden among the trees. When they entered, they would trip a wire which released counterbalances holding the gates suspended overhead. Lance would check his traps once or twice a week depending on weather conditions.

 Captured animals were wrestled to the ground, blind folded, and injected with the sedative Vetcalm. This neutralised their anxiety for long enough to be coerced into walking to the boat. Wrestling with an adult antlered deer wasn’t a job for the faint hearted, even when working in pairs. On one occasion one of lance’s helpers was attacked by a young “spiker” and  hospitalised with a serious stomach wound.

My first business enterprise after settling in Manapouri was to act as a middleman between a helicopter company and deer farmers. I purchased live animals straight off the chopper and transferred them to a local deer farmer. He ear-tagged them, and looked after them until they were accustomed to fenced paddocks and ready to sell-on to farmers.

Fiordland National Park

The Fiordland Triangle

There is a saying in rural areas in New Zealand that could have been coined specifically for Fiordland in the seventies and eighties. “There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there’s no such thing as old bold pilots.” There were fortunes to be made in the venison and live deer capture industry, but as the deer got fewer and wiser, the choppers had to fly closer and bank and turn quicker, and the margins grew too small for safety.

I lived in Manapouri for a little over two years and was acquainted with a number of people who lost their lives or were permanently injured in air accidents. They were larger than life characters, with exotic nick names,, and outgoing personalities, who you’d have a beer with one night, and be reading about in the paper the next day. I was personally involved with two attempted recovery missions. A Jet Ranger Helicopter with a pilot and two shooters aboard, left Te Anau at daybreak and flew low over Lake Manapouri into the mist. For some reason it flew at speed straight into the lake and all were lost. The next day, together with the Chopper owner, Lance and I spent several hours trawling the lake in a spot where a small oil slick had appeared. We snagged something but weren’t able to bring it to the surface. The lake is very deep and as far as I know the wreck and the remains of the deceased are still there.

It’s the same with the Cray (lobster) fishing industry. The West coast of Fiordland is bleak, unforgiving, and pummelled by gale force winds. The Crays are plentiful when a run is on, and fortunes can be made if you can get your cray pots to places where other fishermen won’t go. A local fisherman and his young deckhand didn’t return home one night and Lance and I at the request of his wife, left at daylight the next day, hoping to find them waving to us from the shore. What we found was a pitifully small amount of matchwood scattered along a gravelly beach, and an empty twisted cray pot with one rubber glove in it. His fishing boat had most likely been hoisted by a monster swell and dumped from high onto a submerged rock which wiser fishermen knew to keep away from. Their bodies and the remains of the fishing boat were never found..

Shaylene

Shaylene was a 52-foot cutter rigged sloop, owned by Les Hutchins the owner of Fiordland Travel and Les knew I could be called on to crew for him at short notice. One of our more interesting trips was a charter by National Geographic who were planning to publish an article on Captain Cook’s discovery of New Zealand in 1776. Cook had explored, named, and mapped the principal fiords in Fiordland and we had the privilege of retracing and photographing this part of his historic voyage.  The American photographer chartering Shaylene, realising there were bunks to spare invited some female professional circuit tennis players, to join the cruise. These passengers, including the National Geo photographer, all proved to be prima donnas of the highest order and it was a relief when they finally disembarked.

A few months earlier Les had invited Lance and me to help him crew Shaylene on a voyage up the western side of NZ, around Cape Reinga at the top, and down into the Bay of islands. We were to be accompanied by one of Les’s employees called Des Arthur, which was a bit worrying, because he was known locally as “Disaster.”

We set out from Bluff, New Zealand’s southernmost town, around midday on a blustery sunny day. We were headed for Milford Sound and Les said a front was forecast to the northwest, but we had a fair wind and with luck should make Milford before the worst of it arrived.

The run along the bottom of the South Island went well but when we rounded the cape and turned north, the sea became more turbulent. We shortened sail and headed into a strengthening wind. By the time darkness fell the gale had lifted to a steady 40 knots and was gusting much higher. We dropped the reefed main, raised a storm jib to help keep her head to wind, and motored on. We were sharing two hour watches, one man on the wheel and the others harnessed into their bunks. By now all except Les were seasick but we still had to take our turn at the wheel, and to assist on deck if called by the man on watch. In the end it was easier to remain on deck while Shaylene battled on. By about 10 pm the wind was sitting steady on 60 knots and gusting to 90. We were now in the grip of a category one hurricane and the huge swells at times towered above us. There would be a short period when they’d come in a regular pattern but without warning we’d be knocked down by a massive breaker from a different direction. and with the yacht struggling to right itself, there’d be another bigger wave that would knock us flat.

Below decks, everything not tied down or locked away came adrift and the main cabin floor was strewn with objects sloshing around with every erratic movement of the ship. The crashing of this detritus, and the juddering of the ship were drowned out by the screaming of the wind in the rigging.

Several times that night the railing was in the water and the spreaders on the mast almost touching the sea. Finally in the wee small hours, Lance and Les who were the real seamen, plotted a safe passage through the rocks studding the coast near the mainland, and we limped into the safety of Milford sound. We spent two days recuperating before Les’s daughter Robyn joined us and we set sail again for the Bay of Islands. The weather had settled by the time we ventured out to sea and 6 days would pass before we were to see land again.

Worn out crew, finally at anchor in Milford.

The next leg was relatively uneventful except at daybreak one morning, when Les went on deck to relieve Disaster at the wheel. He saw Des had earphones on and was listening to his tape recorder with his eyes closed. Les noticed two other things. There was land on the horizon where no land should be, and Des’s magnetic tape recorder, was nestled snuggly alongside the ship’s magnetic compass. Les plucked the recorder out of the cockpit, Des woke up, and Les steered a safe course out to sea again. And what was Disaster listening to? Of all things, a recording of Winston Churchill’s funeral.

Cruising. Les Hutchins at the helm, and from left, me, Des, and Lance with guitar.

There was very little sleep to be had on the final night. The weather was warm, we were making good time, but we were approaching the shipping lanes. We rounded Cape Reinga a little after midnight and made our way south to our anchorage in the bay at Russell in The Bay of Islands.

 I rose early while the others were sleeping. The sun was inching over the horizon and I watched the night slip away. There was a warm summer breeze and it was going to be a beautiful day. The memory of this special moment is as vivid now as it was more than 40 years ago. There were three dead flying fish on deck, I selected the biggest and tossed the other two overboard. I now had bait which I attached to a rod and in twenty minutes had caught two gurnard big enough to provide a small portion of fresh fish each for breakfast. I stowed the fishing gear and reflected on how great it was to be alive, while around me the sea birds and other inhabitants of Russell, came slowly to life.

Crossing The Ditch

Chapter 11 of my story will be published shortly. It covers my final months in New Zealand before I decided to start a new life in Australia.