It's complicated. For sure, Osborne's Transport is a real family business….has been for pretty much all of its near-on 70 years.

But, unlike most Kiwi trucking dynasties, we're not talking just the one family here – not the traditional father/son/grandson line of succession that so often is the way with longtime family businesses. Well, not so far anyway.

It'd help to have some grounding in genealogy to fully appreciate the twists, turns and intricacies of the DNA that's created this once big and bullish, now modest (and happy with it) Te Awamutu trucking company.

Essentially, three families – in amongst 12 different co-owners – have run the show. But also entwined in Osborne's Transport's DNA are another two trucking families from hundreds of kilometres away…

And a whole bunch of other transport operations that are also part of its family tree (thanks to them having been wholly or partially absorbed by Osborne's) – most of them from around the Waikato….but also one from Taranaki.

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