Even at the weekend he's working on motors!

GROWING up in rural Wairoa, Lance Maxwell would drive his parents nuts by dismantling any engine he could get his hands on and leaving parts lying around as he worked to put them back together.

“But I never thought about doing it for a job,” he says. “When I was at Wairoa College I thought you could go into forestry or the meatworks, and that was it.”

Having followed the traditional path, Lance (32) got some skills and was working as a butcher in Frasertown when he heard Quality Roading and Services had an opening for an apprenticeship mechanic.

“I just thought it looked like a huge opportunity and they took me on,” he says. “It's amazing to be doing something I always wanted to do.”

Having gone through his apprenticeship, Lance qualified at the end of 2018 as a mechanic and, with the rest of the workshop team, maintains and repairs everything from the smallest weedeater to 30-tonne diggers “and everything in between”. Since the apprenticeship, Lance has also finished his level 4 first line management qualification.

“QRS has been so supportive right through my training,” he says. “Now I not only have a way of supporting my family, but have a qualification doing something I absolutely love.”

When he's not at work, Lance follows his passion for Mazda rotary engine cars, of which he owns two.

“So even at the weekend, I am working on motors,” he says. Watch his story. 

5 May 2021

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