Describe your job role in VivaGreen and year you started?
My brother Garrett and I started working together back in 1992 when we started a business in Ireland designing and building bespoke automation machines for electronic & medical device companies, as engineers we hate waste and this lead us to create VivaGreen.
I’m not sure how to describe my role in a ‘nutshell’ as my day involves so many different strands from R&D of new products, considering new distribution arrangements, financial management through to assessing new market/product opportunities and everything in between, all of which makes up the ‘joy’ of running a small business.
Tell us a bit about yourself?
I don’t take things too seriously other than issues surrounding the environment. I suppose that’s the driver for Garrett and I to start VivaGreen in the 1990’s when issues of climate health were not as high up the popular or political agenda as they are today. We wanted to put our engineering backgrounds to work to make a difference and love using our skills to develop the next breakthrough product to substitute many of the harmful products used in our homes, gardens & workplaces every day.
I completely love working for myself and as the saying goes I never worked a day in my life. Like any business there are many challenges and stresses, but the highs you get from launching a new eco-product, seeing a customer pick up your product in a supermarket and put it in their basket or hitting on the next breakthrough technology, makes it all worthwhile.
Hobbies
Driving as I’m the official courtesy car driver to my 3 teenage daughters. On the odd time I’m not doing that I do enjoy tinkering with my classic car, a 25 year old E-220 convertible Mercedes. I wish more products had the same build quality to stand the test of time and help us move away from being a ‘take-make-waste’ society. Another hobby is windsurfing; I used to do a lot of that before my kids came along and am starting to get back into it again, anyway some days I Feel I do a need an extra bit of wind in my sails!
Favourite VivaGreen Product and why?
I think it’s got to be our first product, the GreenStake, which we launched over 20 years ago. The beauty about this product is its simplicity, but hidden behind that is a clever design that minimises the amount of materials used, maximises mechanical properties of strength and toughness and a profile to provide impressive anchoring function to beat any competitor stake.
I also love it because it has taken us around the world including to Glastonbury Festival with its use as a camping peg, to Real Madrid FC as a turf stake, to Niagara Falls Parks as a weed barrier pin, to Suncorp Stadium in Australia as a sod stake, among many other places.
What is your pet hate?
Not surprising as an engineer, I love efficiency. One of my pet hates is when my kids don’t fill the dish-washer efficiently and to its maximum capacity. They laugh at me when I try to give them a 3-minute ‘How-To’ lecture on the matter.
Who is someone you admire, and why?
I’m going to go big on this one; Ernest Shackleton, an Irishman who led an expedition during 1914-17 to attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. The expedition failed to accomplish this objective but became recognised instead as an epic feat of endurance. He is a character that exemplifies courage, resilience and leadership as he led his crew of 28 men through a two year struggle for survival, without chance of rescue, on a journey across pack ice, drifting ice floes and through the most treacherous waters in the world to safety without losing a single man. I love the advert for crew in a London paper at the time which reflected the true risks and uncertainty of survival involved: “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.” Sounds sometimes a bit like our journey in VivaGreen!
