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Media Release – for immediate release

22 March 2010


Top excavator operator Brett successfully defends national title.

Brett Hollyman : second time winner of New Zealand’s number one operator competition



Champion digger driver Brett Hollyman has retained the title of New Zealand’s number one multi-skilled operator, winning the National Excavator Operator Competition finals for the second year running.

Brett, from Clive, Hastings, was the first ever Hawke’s Bay winner and is only the second champion to successfully defend the title in the competition’s 15-year history.
Brett, a manager with Contrax Technical Services, defeated 12 other regional champions from around the country at the two-day event held at the Field Days in Feilding, Manawatu.

“I’m delighted to have brought the title home for Hawke’s Bay for two years in a row,” he said. “It was a very tough competition with more competitors than last year.

“The organisers sprang some surprises on us but I just went in to it focussed on what needed to be achieved and it worked out.”

After his first win last year Brett celebrated until 5am - this year it was 4am enjoying “some live music and a few beers” with some of his fellow contestants.
The event, organised by the New Zealand Contractors’ Federation, is famed both for the rigorous nature of the competition - designed to test operators’ skills to the utmost - and for some of the more unusual tasks finalists are required to do.

This year that included using the digger to pick an egg up out of sand and balance it on the bottom of a small plastic cup and picking up a half round wooden post and balancing it on top of a road cone - where it had to stay for at least 10 seconds.

Brett’s success is even more remarkable given that the 12 tonne Hitachi machines provided for the competition by major sponsor Cable Price, are much larger than the three tonne machines he uses at work.

The Federation’s Executive Officer Malcolm Abernethy said Brett, who also won the One Day Job category of the competition, was a very worthy winner.
“Brett is a very modest, self-effacing sort of person but he just stands out when he is competing, “he said. “He is very confident and thorough, has very extensive knowledge and just did everything right.”

Runner up was 2008 national champion Brian Hoffmann, representing Auckland, who also won the Truck Loading category. Third place went to Myles Carson, the Wellington regional champion, who won the police-sponsored Load Security section.

Hayden Hira, the Bay of Plenty champion, won the Humes Award for the most helpful and considerate contestant.

As well as many practical challenges, including building a construction project from scratch, finalists were required to demonstrate their planning and project management abilities, show extensive knowledge about the machine, health and safety measures and land transport regulations and deal with emergency first aid and environmental scenarios.

ends

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