Matthew Ogden

I established Water Cartage Whitsunday with a tipper and a slide in water cart. The core business was Potable Water delivered to households in the Whitsunday Region without Town Supply. This became successful and soon we were supplying and delivering quarry materials to builders, concreters and landscapers. Which led to earthmoving being added to our services, with a 1.7tonne and 8 tonne excavator which we transported ourselves on a tag trailer.

This business has recently been sold and I am looking to employment for the next stage of life.

Milne Bros Proserpine is a Kubota Dealership servicing the agricultural and construction sectors with leading quality Kubota equipment and service. Kubotas domestic and commercial range of lawn care machinery was our initial foothold into the local market.

This dealership was born from necessity for us as we had another business at the time, in which we relied heavily on Kubota machinery and parts.

This wasn't a minor undertaking to establish a profitable company with all facets of a dealership required by the manufacturer to establish the Dealer Agreement. Within three months (from concept to operating) we had put together a fully staffed and profitable operation.

I sold Milne Bros Proserpine to Milne Bros Equipment (Ebstar PTY LTD).

I purchased JL Slashing which was a small lawnmowing/ tractor slashing business based in Cannonvale to create a lifestyle for my young family, while, turning JL into the Pinnacle of environmental, public area and facility maintenance and operation across Whitsunday, Mackay, Isaak and Burdekin Regions.

This was possible through hard work employing good people and retaining good people. Developing strong relationships with representatives from local government departments, state government departments, private sector developers.

I sold JL Slashing in 2020 to focus on the Milne Bros Proserpine venture.

Brickworks purchased the business where I was employed as Plant Manager. This role was broad to say the least. I was tasked with transitioning this business from a locally managed (old school) practises that were out dated, some by decades, into a modern fully industry standard compliant operation. It also entailed overseeing the manufacture of concrete masonry construction materials and the production of premix concrete which was retailed from the site. All raw materials, truck scheduling and staffing were managed by me. Sales of these products naturally became a large portion of my daily.

This role was managed remotely by Brickworks from Melbourne. I enjoyed the unlimited challenges and successes of this role and only made the decision to move on into my own business to improve work life balance for me and my young and growing family at that time.

From finishing year 12 till starting at Brickworks I had a three local employers where I held comparable positions as a HC truck driver and machine operator. Some of this work was seasonal within the sugar industry during the crushing season transporting harvesting equipment and alike. During the "offseason" I was involved with road construction as a HC truck driver and machine operator.

At the time of this employment I was usually the youngest on the crew at any given time, but, more times than not found myself in a supervisory role of sorts and tasked with roles usually held for operators of more seniority. This speaks to my personality and attitude of "It can be done".