A technical man … for technical projects
How you structure your sales team to support customers while also communicating the technical requirements of those customers to your operations team can be tricky at the best of times and will often involve several people’s input to help satisfy the customer’s needs. And it is that sentiment which has prompted Firth’s appointment of our first ever Sales Rep. to a Technical Sales position - to support some of our biggest Certified customers in Auckland.
John Boules studied Chemical Engineering at Auckland Uni and was taken on by Firth two and a half years ago as a Graduate Engineer. “Even though I studied engineering I have always felt like a salesperson, so I pitched the idea to my boss to do both.”
“The idea was to have a sales role that is able to assist with mix designs and technical enquiries for our commercial customers, making it a one stop shop sales role,” says Jamie Frew, National Commercial Account Manager for Firth. “It’s early days but it looks promising which is a credit to John getting stuck in.”
John was officially appointed to the role of Technical Sales from November last year but had started working with some of our largest customers earlier in 2023. “Once our customers had someone like me who could get the answers to their specialist mix enquiries quickly, I think they began to see that it benefitted them and that I was a one stop shop if you like.”
Technical Excellence Award win
A feather in John’s cap is the work that Firth has undertaken for the Central Interceptor project for Watercare, being delivered by Ghella Abergeldie JV - in particular the Lyon Ave Caisson Wall, a critical element of the project's infrastructure – see photo above.
He was challenged to design and place a grout to fill the 70mm annulus gap left behind by the cutting shoe, joining the external wall of the caisson with the ground, to hold up the weight of the concrete. The caisson stands at a height of 39 metres and weighs approximately 1,000 tonnes!