It’s not uncommon to hear the road transport industry signalling it has a shortage of young talent. And there are various schemes to attract and support new blood.

Here is a young company, with an enthusiastic 28-year-old at the helm and plenty of youth on the crew that has links to one of those industry initiatives.

Taupiri’s David Rogers and the fast-growing Kainui Contracting Ltd he founded in January 2019 is example of young guns who are literally delivering by the truckload.

David has featured on the pages of New Zealand Truck & Driver before, as a finalist in the 2016 RTANZ Young Truck Driver of the Year competition before stepping up to win the contest in 2017 and 2018. 

David had just topped the national under-25 driving competition for the second time at Dunedin in late-2018 when Kainui Contracting Ltd was formed. Since then he’s grown the KCL operation from one to seven trucks and also manages up to 20 sub-contractors on a daily basis.

Currently the KCL rollcall is nine, with seven operators plus a part-time admin to assist David.