Blair Chapman

Construction Foreman

Canterbury-based Blair Chapman is a newly appointed Construction Foreman for Taylors, having been a digger and dozer operator within the business for the past 13 years. He still enjoys jumping on a machine as needed, but these days his role is more focused on team management and keeping projects moving along.

“At the moment, I run pre-starts, get the boys up and running and keep them on track. I give them their day-to-day tasks. If they have any questions or queries, they usually come to me. If anyone has to call in sick, they ring me.”

Blair’s interest in working for Taylors was piqued by watching their work on the Southern Motorway project.

“They had some pretty sharp operators doing pretty tidy stuff with pretty tidy gear. I drove past and thought I wouldn’t mind doing that!”

Prior to joining Taylors, Blair worked for a council in construction and water reticulation, looking after pump stations and water mains. That gave him some experience operating smaller gear.

Blair says that he enjoys Taylors’ team environment. “We’ve got a pretty small team and we all seem to get along pretty good. We have a good laugh, it’s a good environment.”

He also enjoys being part of a business that works on bigger, more challenging projects and the way in which the sharing of ideas is encouraged. The Canterbury team manager, Adam O’Meara, is open to hearing people’s thoughts and makes everyone feel valued for their contributions, says Blair.

One of the things Blair likes about Taylors is the way the business offers training and opportunities to its staff. Blair is open-minded about what the future holds.

“I’m open to anything! I’ve done a couple of courses learning drones and surveying and bits and pieces. It’ll grow as it needs to, I imagine. Taylors are always offering training. It’s probably about picking what path you want to go on and where you want to end up.”

Blair says that he’s grateful that Taylors gave him the opportunity as a pretty quiet young fella to learn from the more experienced operators he was working with.

“I didn’t really say much. I just took it all in. I hadn’t done any earthmoving, it was all a learning thing for me. I’d had some experience on diggers before and knew how to do a tidy job.”

Attention to detail is important, says Blair, particularly when you’re working on projects in the public eye.

“A job like the Southern Motorway might have 50,000 vehicles a day going past. Everyone sees what you’re doing. If you’re doing a tidy job everyone notices it. We do a lot of batter slopes. Everyone remembers the finished article. You have to be tidy and clean up after yourself.”

Blair says that the number one quality young people need who are looking to work in the industry is a good attitude. Armed with that, the sky’s the limit.

“Give it a crack! Someone’s got to give you a shot and you can take it from there.”