Hokitika plumber an international success

Winning an international award at the Worldcom World Young Business Achievers’ competition this year was a tremendous achievement for Hokitika businessman Phil Routhan.

The plumber from Hokitika, as he calls himself, was awarded the Management Excellence Award at the finals of the competition, held in Belfast, Northern Ireland in March.

Mr Routhan, 34, runs Hokitika plumbing firm WH Shannon Ltd.--Showing characteristic boldness, he bought the company at the age of 19 – four days after he finished his plumbing apprenticeship.--In subsequent years, he has expended the firm by setting up one-plumber bases in outlying towns.

Mr Routhan entered the awards through winning the New Zealand Young Businessman of the Year in 1995.--As a result of that success, a detailed profile was prepared about his achievements by Auckland firm Cause and Effect Ltd, a partner in the international Worldcom Group, which runs the international business excellence completion.

This profile went to the judges who did further research among New Zealand associates and peers of Mr Routhan, and finally followed up with a lengthy telephone call.

The finals, at which 22 countries were represented, were extremely competitive.--Among other finalists were Rick Lee from Taiwan, aged 38, founder of the ACER computer firm which has an $8 billion annual turnover.--He won the Business Initiative Award.--Todd Ruell, 36, owner of a US natural gas-powered taxi company, won the Business Environmental Award.

For four days in in Belfast the finalists were constantly watched, assessed, interviewed, questioned and analysed by the judges.--Mr Routhan says that, as the owner of a small business, he was at first in awe of the competition.--“In the end I decided that all I could do was to relax and be myself,” he says.--“And what I found was that they had similar interests to me, despite the difference in business scale, and they were pleasant and easy to talk to.”

So how was it that a small town Kiwi plumber was able to achieve so well in a star studded international competition?

Mr Routhan is a modest man and will not really say.--But it is probably something to do with his personal philosophy of management which he expresses as “… common sense with gut feeling thrown in…” … and a huge amount of hard work, of course.

He says that from when he was very young, he had definite ideas about how things should be and he has always pursued goals single-mindedly.--While having had little formal management training, he did take part in a New Zealand Institute of Management course in 1991 which he says was a turning point in his career.

“I walked away from that a different person.--The course taught me things, of course, but mainly it confirmed that many of the techniques that I was already using were correct.--It also gave me a benchmark to measure what I was doing.”