b'CHAPTER 01CONCRETE BEGINNINGSI WONT LEND IT TO YOU, BUT ILL HIRE IT TO YOU.his display mixer to them. Wanting to help out, but These are words that have become lore for the Kennardnot wanting the wear and tear for no benefit to him, family, business and equipment-hire industry. alightbulb lit up in Wallys head: people who needed one of these mixers were likely to be willing to pay a Seventy-five years later, Cameron Kennard muses, If itsmall charge, a fraction of the price of buying their own, had been me, and someone asked if they could borrowto rent one for their project. So the next customer who my concrete mixer, Id have said, Yeah, mate. Go forasked to borrow a mixer was firmly told those famous it. Luckily for Cam and his siblings, their grandfatherwords: I wont lend it to you, but Ill hire it to you.Wally had a different idea.They agreed a rate of 25 shillings ($2.50) for the first day It was 1948, and Wally Kennard was fielding yet anotherand 15shillings ($1.50) per day after that, and Kennards request from a customer to borrow his concrete mixerHire was born. But even in his wildest dreams Wally for a small job. Wallys rural supplies business, could not possibly have imagined what the business he W. Kennard Agencies Pty Ltd, was going well. He hadstarted with those twelve words would grow into. started it in 1944, after moving to the central New South Wales town of Bathurst, hoping the countryWALTER KENNARD: INNOVATOR,air would help with his severe asthma. Sensing thereINVENTOR, CHARMERwas a quid to be made in the postwar building boom,Walter Wally Edward Kennard was born in Worthing, he started selling machinery and equipment, and alsoEngland, on 14 August 1902, the fifth of thirteen became an agent for companies such as Caltex Fuels &children (one of whom died shortly after birth). His Oils and Lightburn & Co, a South Australian engineeringmother, Elizabeth (Lizzie), was Norwegian, and his father, and manufacturing company. Kennard Agencies alsoWalter Kennard Sr, was a successful tea merchant in the represented English cars Humber and Hillman, theUnited Kingdom. However, in the economic depression former being a prestige model and the latter a smallerin the 1890s, the bank foreclosed on his eight houses car from the same factory. and he had to sell the familys property and investments. Walter Sr and Lizzie went from having a comfortable life The mid-1940s saw building projects spring up everywherein a large house with servants to severe financial hardshipfactories, high-rises and estatesresponding towith no assets and mounting debt. the demand for housing. In those days, if a builder or tradesman needed equipment, they would have toLooking for a fresh start, Walter Sr embarked on a either shell out for it, or if they wouldnt get enough usejourney across the globe with his two eldest sons, Sid out of it, they had to beg, borrow or steal.and John, boarding the SS Moravian and setting sail for the distant shores of Australia. Lizzie and their seven As an agent for Lightburn, Wally always had modelsremaining children were left behind on the south coast of its concrete mixers on hand. Many of the projectsof England, waiting anxiously for news and updates. going on around him were houses that requiredEventually, in 1912, the entire family reunited after Lizzie concrete slabs and paths. Ready-mix concrete hadntand the children boarded the SS Pakeha in pursuit of a even been invented yet, and nobody wanted to buy abrighter future in the land down under. They had two mixer that they would only use for a couple of days.more children in Australia.So the weekend warriors would ask Wally if hed lend'