From the heady world of British IT to a Dunedin-based, family-owned pie business may seem a big jump, but for former Otago Boys’ High School pupil Brendan Williams, it has been a welcome homecoming.

Like many OBHS alumni Brendan had happily headed to the University of Otago when he left school, tackling a combined BA/BCom majoring in marketing and economics.

After taking a job in Christchurch as a financial planner he found himself feeling a bit disillusioned with an early 1990s New Zealand that seemed mired in land claims, nasty politics and Rogernomics, so he headed overseas for new opportunities.

A stint in Japan teaching English was followed by time in Western Australia working in a pub while looking to land a job in the mining game. Before he made it into the desert proper, a call from an Auckland-based friend saw him heading back across the ditch to project manage a business running underground TV and Internet cables for Telecom NZ.

After two successful years running a contracting firm with his best mate, the plug was, almost literally, pulled overnight with the development of ADSL technology, so Brendan found his way back into part-time pub work while the next move was contemplated. Here he started to meet many people working in IT.

Seeing the possibilities, Brendan headed back to Otago to complete a Postgraduate Diploma in Computer Science, before heading to London in 1999 where his project management skills were in demand.

“I went into IT project management,” explains Brendan. “This was right in the middle of the dot com boom. It was bloody exciting actually – it was all free lunches and fast cars,”

Brendan ended up at a Hampshire-based company called NTL for five years and during that time met his Australian wife, Rebecca, and had two children, Sam (3) and Charlie (2).

Despite the exciting lifestyle, the desire to return to New Zealand, and more specifically Dunedin, became stronger.

“I came home so the kids could grow up knowing their grandparents and cousins,” he says. “I also got very sick of working for someone else and wanted to be able to build something for myself.”

The opportunity to return home and take over the family business Marlow Pies ticked a lot of boxes for him.

Brendan and his family arrived back in December 2006 and he began almost immediately getting to know the business.

“Learning in a stable business has been a good thing. I have been fortunate that the family business is long-standing and after looking at a number of other businesses that my wife and I could have become involved with, it was a no-brainer to enter one in which we knew the entire history. It would have been a lot more daunting to enter a similar sized business trusting all of our life-savings to the integrity of people we didn’t know.”

For Brendan that has already involved adding a wholesale bread bakery called ‘The Doughbin Wholesale Bakery’ to the once predominantly pie making business. The expanded company now employs more than 40 people.

He has enjoyed being back in the Dunedin business scene, catching up with old school and university friends who are doing very well in Dunedin and Central Otago.

Brendan is also amazed by the changes in the city’s business and economic environment.

“It’s striking. There was never a Porsche or a Mercedes dealership of any consequence before I moved away,” he says.

“This tells me that there is money about and is a good sign on the health of the local economy.

“A lot of people have done very well out of Dunedin and Central Otago. It gives me great optimism because I know if I work hard enough, some of it will come my way.”

Brendan is also enjoying seeing his children taking in the city’s parks, playgrounds and recreational facilities, as well as the fantastic Otago outdoor environment.

And, like all good OBHS alumni, he recognises that the city’s educational environment will give them a great foundation for later life.

“The facilities in Dunedin are really good for a city of its size.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 2:36 pm and is filed under OBHS Alumni Profile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.