This month’s Southpac Legend, Rod Dow, was literally born into a transport company. Three years before his arrival, his parents, Dennis and Cynthia Dow, went into partnership with his uncle and aunt, Jim and Bev Barker, to buy a small King Country carrying firm, renaming it Otorohanga Transport. Jim and Cynthia were siblings.

Consequently, you could say that the company would be his future, like it or not. But he did like it. As he recalls, even the young fantasy games had a transport bias: “When we were little kids we used to be always around the yard. In those days pretty well everyone smoked, and I can remember us going to the dairy and buying those little lollies you could get at the time that looked like cigarettes, then sitting in the truck cabs pretending we were drivers.

“It’s a shame nowadays that young people aren’t able to be exposed to the trucks the way we were. Every school holiday, drivers would have their kids in the cab with them, but health and safety changes have meant that this is pretty much stopped. As a kid I lived in the depot. 

“In the early days of the business Dad looked after the mechanical side, while Uncle Jim mainly worked with clients. After Dad died – of a heart attack, aged 45 – Uncle Jim took on both sides of the job to keep the company going. Mum stayed on, doing administration and office work.”

Cynthia, along with Rod and his sister Carolyn, are still shareholders and active directors of the OTL Group, which in 2008 was split off from the wider Barker Group. 

When he left school Rod didn’t jump straight into driving, he says: “I did an apprenticeship in engine reconditioning, and after I finished my time I went over to Aussie for a few months, as you do. When I came back, I then joined Otorohanga Transport, driving trucks for a while before moving into the workshop as fleet service manager.

“This went on for a few years before I moved into the office, as dispatcher. That was my role for many years until essentially, I became the boss – out of the day-to-day running, now, but doing a whole lot of other stuff.

“Don’t get me wrong, I also enjoy the office work, but dispatching especially can be very hard on family life. With a trucking firm like ours, it’s pretty much a 24-hour activity.”

Among the “other stuff” is a return to Rod’s career roots, and he reckons that he quite likes “mucking around in the workshop fixing trucks.

“I’ve always had a fascination with pulling mechanical things apart, not only to see what might be wrong with them but also to see how they’re designed. On what you could call the hobby side, I have a mid-80s Mack Ultraliner I’m doing up at the moment. It was originally run by Fulton Hogan down in the South Island, but I’ve now got it painted up in OTL colours. We had a couple of Ultraliners in the fleet at one stage, so it’s in historical context.”

While many companies use Facebook as part of their public presentation, few handle it as entertainingly and professionally as OTL, and Rod is right in the thick of it all. Drivers and their backgrounds and interests are featured regularly, and safety and employment issues are presented in an attention-getting way. 

As an example, a recent video post has a deadpan Rod interviewing a potential new driver, explaining what the company offers by way of training and its expectations regarding work experience and drink and drug policies. Twelve-year-old Cameron, the daughter of an OTL driver, wants to make sure she’ll have access to wi-fi, so she can watch Netflix (“but not while you’re driving,” he suggests gently) and needs a fridge in the cab to store her Pepsi. She has good references “for putting away the dishes” but understands there’s quite a backlog on driver training, around five years, leaving to say, “I’ll see you then.”

On the surface it’s all light-hearted, but the company’s employment policies are also presented concisely.

In fact, says Rod, the page was set up originally to recruit drivers: “The classic ad in the paper didn’t seem to be working and we figured that since lots of people seem to be using Facebook, we would give it a go. We used a local cameraman to do the videos featuring the drivers and their trucks and we got a great response. It has just grown from there.

“We’ve got a great industry, with a wonderful mix of people, so we wanted to celebrate that part of the job, and we found that Facebook worked ideally in presenting their stories. It’s almost like recording a bit of history. Uncle Jim was always about people, too, and I suppose that has become part of our culture.”

Then there’s the April Fool’s clips, which after a couple of years look destined to be an annual feature. Blame Covid, says Rod: “During the first lockdown we got the idea for a video about Aussie-style road trains being trialled locally, with me walking around one of our stock units with an extra trailer attached. That went down very well – some people were sucked in at first, before they woke up to what day it was.” 

This year’s effort featured the discovery that dogs can sniff out the Covid virus, Rod urging staff to let their dogs check them out and to stay home if they respond. The canine star of the clip (alerting to a ‘positive’ that was actually a treat in Rod’s pocket) is owned by Rod’s son Liam, himself a driver with OTL.

The OTL page is definitely worth a look. It can be found at “https://www.facebook.com/OTLGROUPLTD/”, or simply enter ‘OTL Group’ in a search engine.

Apart from a burgeoning career as a video star, Rod enjoyed many years playing senior club rugby, but says those days are long gone: “I tried a bit of Golden Oldies, but I’m one of those people who likes to be able to put everything into an activity and I found it frustrating that though I knew where I needed to be on the field my body wasn’t up to getting me there quickly.

“Nowadays I have an interest in a couple of racehorses. That was very much a passion of Dad’s. Over the years he owned several horses in partnership with Uncle Jim, and also was a registered trainer, so I guess that’s where I got that interest from.”

To Rod’s many accomplishments you can now add local government politician. Two years ago, he was elected to the Otorohanga District Council in a by-election after a sitting member moved away from the region.

The township and the company have been his entire life, something he feels very comfortable with. In fact, it’s likely to go even further, he reckons: “I was born in the local hospital, as it was then. It’s now an old people’s home – which is probably where I’ll end up!”