OUR STORY

“School was a waste of time for me. Dad said if I got an apprenticeship, he would sign the papers so I could leave before I was 15. So I did… and I never looked back.”

The year was 1975 and Greg’s starting wage as an apprentice plumber at Able Plumbing and Roofing was just 50 cents an hour, the same price as a jug of beer.

“Back then, you swept the floors, you made the tea, you cleaned the vans and you never stood still… if you did, you got a kick up the bum.”

Greg’s boss, Charlie Andrews, was a hard taskmaster who didn’t suffer fools.

“He was very tough, but he was fair. There were only two apprentices that ever finished with him – me and Bruce Ellwood. Bruce went on to start Mr Plumber.”

Progressing up the ranks, Greg finally got a van in his third year and was allowed to do jobs on his own.

“We mainly did maintenance plumbing. It was good because it made you a good plumber. If you could find out what the problem was, well doing the job, that was a piece of piss.”

Newly qualified, Greg left Able Plumbing and worked with Mark Henson for two years before going out on his own.

“I always knew I wanted my own business, so me and my mate Steve Jennings decided to give it a go. This is how J&J Plumbing came about – Jordan and Jennnings.”

Married in 1980 to wife Gina and welcoming sons Ben and Mark shortly after, it became clear there simply wasn’t enough work for both of them.

“Steve started plumbing out West and I stayed in the Howick/Pakuranga area. There wasn’t much between us, except for a filing cabinet. So we flipped a coin and whoever won the cabinet, got the company name too.

The cabinet still sits in the office today.”

Officially established in 1988, J&J Plumbing and Gas started like any small business in New Zealand getting work through word of mouth.

“I started out by dropping flyers into letterboxes, but that didn’t last long, I just got work through talking to people.

You'd go down to the pub and have a beer with someone and they'd go ‘oh, so-and-so's a builder…’ and then you would talk to them and that would lead on to more work. It just grew from there.”

Doing anything and everything, the secret to Greg’s success was keeping his workload diverse and building great relationships.

“I had a call from a guy to look at a leak at one of his factories.  

Well, you should’ve seen this bathroom, it was scummy. The basin was black, there were holes in the walls, stains on the floor… it was revolting.  

I called him back it and said, ‘I’m not fixing that, I will pull it out and put a new one in, but I am not fixing it.’

I guess he didn’t mind me telling him straight, because that was 20 years ago, and we still do work for him today!”

However, not all client relationships have been so long-lasting.

“We did do some work for a gang once and they didn’t end up paying me. So I went to their headquarters and got led upstairs to meet the kingpin. I think he must have thought ‘this guy’s either got balls or is stupid’, either way, he paid me and I walked out of there in one piece. Let’s just say we didn’t do any more work for them after that.”

Trusting your gut and working hard has kept Greg in good stead over his 40 years in business. After all, he has been through many construction cycles and experienced the highs and lows that come with it.

“People think owning a business is easy.  They think you can do whatever you like, but you can’t. You just don’t ever turn off, and you don’t get holidays at all. If you aren’t working, you’re not earning.

Don’t get me wrong there are a lot of positives too, you get great job satisfaction, and you don’t have to take orders from anyone . Apart from Gina - and I took those all the time!”

Like father like son, Mark left school at 15, however working in the family business wasn’t always the plan.

“He got an apprenticeship at Jim Lovich Motors as a mechanic, but when that came to an end, he was at a loose end.

I didn’t want him to work in the business because I thought it will just end in an argument, I just couldn’t see it. But Gina could, God Bless her.”

After some gentle persuading, Greg took on Mark as an apprenticeship under one condition.

“Gina’s rule was from 7am to 5pm he works for you and from 5pm till 7am he is your son. It was a good rule. I had to be reminded of it a couple of times.”

Getting practical experience in the trade, Mark went from strength to strength. 


“We took him on and he just took off. Even at block courses, he was smoking it.  It was amazing. He did more study in one year of a plumbing apprenticeship, than he did it all his years of school.”

Completing his apprenticeship in 2010, Mark was thrown in the deep end with the sudden passing of his mum Gina.

“Gina was half the business – more than half. She worked harder than me.

“When she died, I didn’t care anymore, I was just falling apart. Mark and Adam were there to pick up the pieces. When Mark told me he wanted to take on the business, I thought well I’ve got to pick myself up and help him.”

Over the next 10 years, Mark learnt the ropes from Greg and took over the business with his wife Jess in 2020.

“It was really hard to stop working when it’s all I've ever known since I was 14. However, I’m finally at a point that I don’t feel guilty anymore. I get to enjoy my retirement and spend lots of time with the grandkids, they are my whole world.”