Len was a proud Footscray boy who started his school life at Geelong Road State School in Footscray and went on to secondary school at Maribyrnong. Len was a keen sportsman in his time and during his cricket career met and developed a strong and lasting friendship with Bob Gration. Len and Bob also share an avid interest in the AFL team, the Western Bulldogs.

Len joined Humes Ltd in 1964 and was involved in the financial and accounting side. He has been with the company ever since. Len jokes that with 46 years in the business, he is just starting to get the hang of it.

The firm has had many name changes in the 46 years that Len has worked there, going from Humes Ltd up until 1970, then Humes Steel Pipe and Tubemakers amalgamated to form Steel Mains, which lasted until 1986, following which Tubemakers bought out Humes and then became Tubemakers Water, Oil & Gas division. In the early 1990s BHP had an ownership in Tubemakers, but then they purchased the whole business. The business was split into two, with Tubemakers Water in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, and Tubemakers Oil and Gas Division at Kembla Grange, which is now OneSteel.

“The [other half of the business] went one way and we went the other so I stayed in the water division, and in 1999 BHP decided they were basically going to become miners and sold all their businesses off,” says Len. “They got out of steel, they got out of merchandising and they got out of our business and we were purchased by Tyco who were then basically an American valve company with Keystone as their main product in Australia.

“I have been through all the changes,” Len laughs saying “I have thrown out a few business cards on the way!”

Len was sent up to the Snowy Mountains Scheme in his early career. He says “I was based at Corryong and I was up there with Leigh Fletcher. Leigh was in charge of the non-destructive testing (NDT) part of the business and I was up there purely on an accounting basis. Bob Morrison was also involved in the scheme as the electrical engineer with Humes, and he too is still with our organisation. That was a fabulous project in the days where everything was designed with a slide rule.

“After Corryong I came back and worked with the Humes pipe plant in Footscray around 1968. It was in Dynon Road and that’s where they made the 750 mm pipe for Gas & Fuel. It was the first API pipe that Humes ever made. They were good times, working in the factory environment. It was such a good experience, you just learn so much seeing how things are made and how any manufacturing problems are overcome, and how clever some of the guys are. It is really a sensational background. I was there for a couple of years, and then went to Darwin with Humes. So I went from steel pipe back to the concrete pipe business from 1969 to 1972.

“From Darwin, Humes transferred me to Hobart, which was a bit of a culture shock. I didn’t even have a jumper but I was only there for two months and I came back and joined Steel Mains.

“In 1980, I left accounting to go into sales and marketing and I haven’t looked back. I must admit I enjoy the sales and marketing much better than the number crunching.

“It was a very busy time from 1979 through to 1988. Melbourne Water or Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW), as they were known then, was into a huge expansion stage and they spent a fortune on large transfer pipe of 1,700 and 2,100 mm in diameter.

“So that made it interesting and in the Tubemakers area I was actually working with Tubemakers Oil & Gas involved in the API part of the business. John Cantwell who used to be at Tubemakers at Kembla Grange used to do the marketing back-up for me and we covered the southern region.

“During the 1990s, Tubemakers concentrated more on the API side of the business and then things went very quiet on the water side of the business. Melbourne Water stopped buying as they had finished most of their work. People like Barwon Water, or Geelong Sewerage and Water Trust as they were known then, had done a huge amount of expansion work starting in 1980 through to about 1988, and they had spent a fortune and installed all their major trunklines. So for about five years at Steel Mains and in the early Tubemaker days we were struggling. Luckily Queensland and Western Australia were going well, but Victoria and South Australia were very quiet.”

Len comments on the pipe Tyco supplied for the Victorian Desalination Plant and the Sugarloaf Pipeline – both big projects requiring large diameter pipe. The company invested $40 million in Victoria to expand the plant to handle these projects.

“The pipe being supplied for the desalination plant weigh 12 t each for the smaller ones and 15 t for the larger diameter pipe. They were terrific projects to be involved in and gave a real sense of value adding,” he says.

When asked, Len says that the most exciting project during his career without a doubt was the Snowy Mountains Scheme. “We were making pipe 3.6 m in diameter at Corryong and then carting them to the bench at Khancoban for the Murray 1 and the Murray 2 penstocks. When you saw the size of these things and when you remember Humes had no experience in the manufacture of this size pipe, it was a remarkable achievement. There were so many people employed up there not just in the pipe manufacturing but also in the NDT. That was a long time ago and companies took on commercial and technical risks that they would never do today.”

Len had so many more interesting things to tell us about his 46 years in the pipe business, but as usual space precludes from including them all. Suffice to say Len has seen the pipeline business grow from the days of the Snowy Mountains to the present day. With his retirement in mid-August, we wish him many happy golfing days and thank him for his huge contribution to the pipeline industry.