Kiwi Business Story: James Galloway at O’Donnell Park Barging

 
James Galloway is the Manager of O’Donnell Park Barging and an Owner Manager Programme and Leadership Development Programme alumni. 

This Kiwi Business Story is based on a podcast from 15 December 2022, and all figures quoted are from that time. You can enjoy the complete podcast here.

What do you and your business do?

We run three separate barging and agriculture operations within the Marlborough Sounds. O’Donnell Park Barging (ODPB) is the parent company. So we run ODPB, Kenny Barging and Johnsons Barge Service between Picton and Havelock. Every day is different. We do everything from mooring servicing through to organising jetty building, general freight, agriculture servicing, and a whole lot of different stuff.

Why did you do LDP first?

I'd never heard of The Icehouse [before LDP]. We had got to a point in our business where we'd lost a major contract and we were going, ‘Where are we going to go?’, ‘How are we going to diversify?’ 

One of our directors at the time knew Steve Doecke at Asset Insurance (a much-missed Icehouse partner, friend, and Icehouse advocate). I got the introduction and he became a good mate from there.

He just started talking about this Icehouse thing and how going on a leadership development course would be better for you. I thought, ‘Well I don't really need it’ but looking at it now, going on that LDP, I wouldn't change it for the world. If I had my time again, I wish I’d signed up way earlier. 

Once I'd got through the LDP, and we'd put together a business plan and gone through a massive diversification process into commercial property… expanded from two boats to five boats, added staff, we asked, ‘What's next?’ 

(James jumped on to OMP after meeting Andy Hamilton, former Icehouse CEO, at a conference.

So the OMP was 2020-2021 and that was a game changer. It really was it. 

What did you get out of OMP? Was there an ‘a-ha’ moment?

You get there on day one, and I just remember walking in and going, ‘I’m the smallest business here’. You're sitting there with guys that have multimillion dollar businesses… and for the first day you’re sitting there and working out who's the big dog. Very quickly you realise that everyone's on the same level. 

I think the big thing for me was when we did our panel discussions. You present what your business is, where you operate, and all of that side of things. You’re put into a group and an external panellist comes in, listens, and they pick apart your business.

I relate it to Dragon's Den, but probably not as scary! There were some moments in there that I just went, ‘What am I even doing?’ and ‘Should I just hand in my resignation and go and do something else’, because that's how much it challenged you. But it actually made you realise no, I'm here for a reason.

As for the a-ha moment, there were so many. I remember sitting there sobbing one day – I wasn't the only one in my group. But it was just so emotionally charging – pushing towards that during the process and coming through. 

One thing I've learned is my way isn't the only way of doing things. I'm trying to do this as; I want to be able to paint a picture of where we're going, and let the guys build it with me, and set them up to succeed going, ‘Hey, this is what's happening today,’ ‘This is what you've got to achieve’, ‘What do you want to do with this area?’ and let the team come back. And a lot of times it works. 

What does the future look like for you and ODPB? 

At the moment, we’re in a bit of a settled phase. We've seen a lot of growth over the last three and a half years – we've pretty much doubled our vessel capacity in that short time. So now it’s time to settle, just to settle those operations, settle the staff and start seeing that staff growth. 

And then just finesse for a little bit, before we do the next thing. We do have a couple of little things in the pipeline but, for me, it's trying to get out of my day-to-day ‘in the business’ self, and start working out into that growth side of things a little bit more. 

The last 18 months has been really tough working in the business – to get those acquisitions running to where we want them. But we've got great management teams in play that are doing a fantastic job and it's going to work – we’ve just got to take time, work with each other and keep smiling.