Wayne McCurdy
Wayne McCurdy
Wayne McCurdy was born in New Plymouth in June 1950 to Jim and Barbara McCurdy.
McCurdy Engineering was established in 1961 by Wayne’s parents in their home garage on South Road, New Plymouth. In 1965, the company was officially formed and moved into a purpose-built engineering workshop on Barrett Road.
Wayne joined the team in 1972 after qualifying as a fitter and turner with the Taranaki Harbour Board. The work in those days was mainly repairing and fabricating agricultural equipment for local farmers and contractors around the area. As the company grew it expanded into body building, crane mounting and chassis alterations. Around this time, Wayne joined the Institute of Road Transport Engineers and the Truck & Trailer Manufacturing Association of which McCurdy’s are still members.
With an ambition to expand the business further, Wayne took over the reins in 1987 and signed up with Titans as a service dealership, and picked up the Volvo truck and construction franchise. In 1990 the company moved into new premises on Devon Road. Southpack Trucks approached Wayne, giving the newly formed Auckland business a foot in the door in the Taranaki region. Having the Volvo franchise for Taranaki meant McCurdy’s could support Fonterra (or Kiwi Dairies as it was originally known). Eventually Titans was taken over by Truckstops, bringing Hino and Mack with them. In 2011 Wayne and wife Frances purchased another established Taranaki automotive business, Moller Johnson Isuzu, with workshops in Hawera and Bell Block, meaning the McCurdy’s now offered Taranaki-wide coverage for the heavy transport industry.
McCurdy Engineering and Moller Johnson integrated in 2017 and rebranded as McCurdy Trucks.
In late 2019, McCurdy Trucks opened a purpose-built truck and trailer repair facility with a specialist 10-bay service workshop, 8-bay engineering and fabrication workshop, showroom and expanded parts warehouse at their upgraded premises in New Plymouth.
Wayne has always been an active contributor to most transport organisations including TTMF, RTA, NZ Heavy Wheel Aligner Association and is still a member of the MTA Heavy Transport Committee. Wayne has also served on Government committees developing rules and opportunities for private truck workshops to carry out COF inspections.
In 2000, Wayne’s son Paul joined the company as an engineer, making it three generations of McCurdy engineers. Paul has since become manager of the company following in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps however Wayne still keeps a close eye on things – he still turns up daily to add input into the parts, service, sales and engineering departments, just the hours vary!
McCurdy’s now employ around 60 staff within their parts, service and engineering workshop, sales and admin departments. Wayne is also proud to now have a fourth generation McCurdy working in the business.
It is fair to say the wheels of Taranaki would have crawled to a halt years ago without Wayne and McCurdy’s 60 odd years of support to the industry.