Ike Stephens Ike Stephens & Co Ltd Tauranga 440 years Contracting in Tauranga | started drainage contracting in Tauranga with my own Company in 1978 ‘Around 1980 Tauranga started the fast track sewerage system to put Tauranga on sewerage in 4-6 years. The Council had its own design team, in house, with Senior Engineers to Inspectors. ‘At the outset the plans were not very practical to construct so | suggested to the Engineers that they bring the Design staff out to all the work sites once a week. This proved to be a good move and the Planning and design team achieved a very high standard. The Senior Engineer asked me if | would meet the team on site of the more difficult jobs before the plans were completed. Further on through this project they selected my Company to undertake the difficult jobs and we got many accolades because all jobs were completed on time and under budget. This arrangement where the Council used my experience continued until approximately the mid 1900s when the Council started using Consultants. Contracts started coming out that were very impractical for the sites and the cost obviously escalated. When | pointed this out to the Council it ‘occurred to me that most of the staff were not capable of making decisions. This became obvious when I queried a council Engineer about the practicality of a contract we were asked to do. | stated that it was totally unnecessary and a waste of council money, but the Council engineer chose to carry on with it at considerable expense. From that day on | was a marked man to the extent that a Contractor from Auckland was told after he was awarded a contract, that if he used us as a subcontractor to do his PE welding his contract would be torn up. As we were the only Company specialising in PE welding in Tauranga at the time he was obliged to hire another PE welding person from Huntly, and obviously at more cost to him. At this point in time | had not met the Engineer who bad mouthed our Company, and this matter carried on for several months so | laid a complaint with the Council to no effect. This engineer even sent an e mail to another Contractor, that we were subbing to, stating he was not happy that they were using Ike Stephens for the job. This attitude carried on and gathered a few more Engineers to the extent that when I tendered for work we would be turned down with a weak e mail stating that ‘our methodology was not satisfactory. An easy out for them! One Contract that | won was held up until it was too close to winter to work in the wetlands. My methodology changed the complete process to improve the installation and leave less impact on the area. They didn’t sign the Contract, and retendered it in the spring using my design. They left out a few items and when we enquired we were told to add $80,000 to the tender, which we later found out that this was double what everyone else who tendered was quoted! Another job was in Welcome Bay which was to re-align a sewer in Private property. Opus International was the Engineer. We found a problem with the levels so had to relay the line which we did with no fuss and a reasonable extra cost. That is when he admitted that what he was told by others just did not fit our profile and he was delighted to have worked with us. About two months later he rang to tell me he was moving to Perth and thanked me again, while warning me to watch my back as he what he had overheard in the ‘smoko’ room was not very nice.In 2015 the Council employed an HSE officer and at around the same time we were applying to renew our approved Contractor licence. All good, except this chap decided we had not allowed for the gas coming off our welding. | rang him to explain that it was fusion welding, not metal welding, and invited him to visit our jobs so we could show him the process and that no gas was generated. He still would not approve our H/S plan as he was stil insisting we were not mitigating the risk of gas off the welds! So that we could clear up this matter | met him in the council office, with another engineer present to explain the process again. | thought this would sort it but 3 months later we were asked to shift our pipe welding off a Council job as we were still not an approved contractor and still had not explained how we were to manage the gas. We then used a gas detector and did a video of the pipe being welded, and this was sent to him. Two days later we got an email thanking Us for the information, but then requesting that we provide the chemical make-up of the Polyethelene pipe. We got this from the supplier and finally got our approval signed off 5 months after we submitted it. ‘The upside of this was that the Engineers who had the utmost confidence in our ability still awarded us Contracts. ‘Over the 40 years our Company had been in business we did an enormous amount of work for the ‘WBOPDC who preferred our Company to do most of their work. We have an excellent reference from one of their senior engineers stating that in all the years that we worked for them, we had never been recalled to any Contract to remedy poor workmanship or materials. When we sold our Company in 2016 we were sent a letter from the Engineering staff at WBOPDC thanking us for our excellent service and stating that we would be very much missed by that Council. Ike StephensTO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN IKE STEPHENS & COMPANY LTD. | have known Ike Stephens for more than 15 years in the course of his contracting business and, occasionally, in other spheres. | have no hesitation in certifying that Ike Stephens has presented to me characteristics of honesty and integrity, good citizenship and uprightness to a degree that makes him stand out amongst his fellow men, and | have always found him to be totally trustworthy. Ike Stephens is a “hands on” professional contractor with extensive experience in constructing physical works as well as being a Director of his own Company. Ike Stephens is recognized throughout the Bay of Plenty and surrounding areas by his peers and other contractors, engineers, Council officers and technical representatives from companies that manufacture pipe and fittings who regularly seek Ike Stephen's services or simply ask for his advice on how to complete a difficult task or install a utility in a challenging situation. Ike Stephens & Company Ltd act competently and professionally in all their contracting operations. They have the commitment, technical personnel, competent staff with a wide range of skills and capability, appropriate plant, machinery and other resources to successfully complete challenging projects. As owners of the company Ike & Trish Stephens take pride in their work. Their Clients can be confident that works and utilities constructed by Ike Stephens & Company Ltd are completed to a very high standard and comply fully with current standards and specifications. Ike Stephens & Company Ltd has over 38 years civil engineering contracting experience in the Bay of Plenty region and has successfully completed a very large number of projects over that time. Ike Stephens has considerable experience in civil engineering construction including infrastructure engineering providing technical expertise, management, and implementation. Ike Stephens & Company Ltd has worked closely with Western Bay of Plenty District Council and other Councils in the region to provide a quality engineering service on various water, wastewater and stormwater renewals and capital works projects. For 10 years Ike Stephens & Company Ltd was the water and wastewater reticulation maintenance contractor and for the last 8 years they have been certified as one of five only contractors who can work on WBOPDC water reticulation system and install water service connections throughout the District. The Company has been directly involved in the construction of many kilometers of utility services and watermains throughout the District. These include construction of capital works projects such as renewals and upgrades improvements / extensions forwater supply, trunk watermains, pump stations and rising mains, stormwater and wastewater reticulation throughout the Western Bay of Plenty District. Projects included initial investigation, consultation, schedules of prices for tendering, health & safety, traffic management, contract administration, construction, commissioning and handover to Client. Liaison with other authorities is part of contracting in order to gain approvals and / or permits to enter on to land for construction purposes e.g. Transit New Zealand crossings under State Highways, pipelines supported by existing bridges, large diameter pipe under roads and railway, OnTrack for attaching watermains to bridges over railways and carrier ducts under ECMT Railway, Historic Places Trust with archaeological sites, consultation with property owners and local Iwi for entering onto private land, In3Roads for approvals for working within the local road reserves. For their PE pipe welding operations Ike Stephens & Company Ltd complete their contracts in a very practical and logical manner with minimal disruption to roads and accessways, leaving little impact on the environment. They are efficient operators taking the least possible time to complete; from establishing on site, welding the pipes together, lowering the pipe string into the trench in a continuous process, pressure testing the pipe and connecting into the reticulation system, followed by reinstatement and disestablishing. | have no hesitation in recommending Ike Stephens & Company Ltd to undertake civil engineering construction projects on water reticulation, stormwater and wastewater pipelines, trunk mains or other similar works. Yours faithfully me Breer 6/9 Jos Graeme Brown Engineer NZCE,REAcap.Western Bay of Plenty District Council 31 October 2016 TkaStephehs 2016 Limited PO (6070 Bethithem TRORANGA 3147 Dear Ike and Trish Retirement from the contracting world Your pending departure from the contracting world in pursuit of the quiet life of retirement and enjoying the finer things in life cannot be ignored by us. It must be said that your extensive experience and commitment to us, as a client in delivering project works, has been outstanding. As such, the Utilities team want to formally acknowledge and thank you for the service you have provided to the Western Bay of Plenty District Council for four decades. It is certainly a legacy you should be proud of and one that will probably be around longer than most of us. ‘We trust that both of you will take some time out to pursue your interests out of the work environment, and offer our best wishes for your future endeavours. ‘An occasional email now and again highlighting your adventures would be appreciated. LG al Oy Utilities Team : ) Be 42779191 TEKAUSIHGRA A ROME MANGA KURA WHAREIKIOTAMARAKAL KITE URU (>Page 2 of 4 Julian Henson | Northern Operations Manage ‘DDI (09) 354 5702 | Mob (027) 503 9809) Fax (08) 918 8149, AY 6000 panets are hard id. Pease riunlees you need to aul Muller [maitto:Paul.Muller@tauranga.govt.nz] ‘Sent: Thursday, 11 August 2011 8:49 To: Julian Henson Subject: RE: TCC Watermain Hi Julian Thanks for the reply. | appreciate your help on this matter and | also acknowledge that contractually Hawkins is not obliged to do or pay anything to any sub contractors of Matakana. | do however think that as a goodwill gesture Hawkins should talk to Matakana and that is what you said would be happening, | Just do not want to have a situation where sub contractors of sub contractors are not being paid when Hawkins has paid its sub contractor.Please let me know the outcome. Ihave no doubt that Hawkins is very capable of completing the current work. Bruce did an excellent job with the watermain and | hope that | will have the opportunity to work with him again. have also noted your second email regarding the payment although lam not very happy that Matakana is using Ike Stevens to do the rest of the work but that is another matter. ‘Thanks again for your assistance. Paul Miller Project Manager: Water Services Tauranga City Council Ph 07 57 7000 Ext 7528 021 2777 214 www.tauranga.govt.nz From: Julian Henson [mailto:j.henson@hawkins.co.nz) Sent: Wednesday, 10 August 2011 5:00 p.m. To: Paul Muller Cc: Brian FitzGerald; Bruce Cuff; Hannah Schofield ‘Subject: TCC Watermain Hi Paul ‘We have noted your comments in your email of the 9th august to Bruce Cuff Just to clarify that we have paid our subcontractor Matakana in full and that we were unaware of their payment issues. Legally we have no obligation or leverage on Matakana's internal financial arrangements, however we shall ensure that the works are completed as per our obligations under the contract. ‘We shall be taking up the non payment issue with Matakana and if we believe there to be any issues to ad) tO 11/08/2011