Our Marlborough division welcomes Havelock based hosie – Karl Donaldson

As a qualified fitter and turner, Karl brings a wealth of experience to FPS. Utilising his marine engineering ticket, Karl, for the past five years, has been working on fishing boats, deep sea trawlers and mussel boats in New Zealand and Australia. 

Originally from Havelock, but having lived and worked overseas for over 20 years, Karl is pleased to return home and now be one of the FPS Marlborough based team as a hose and hydraulic technician owner operator. Karl’s role will primarily be servicing the marine industry in Havelock. 

As more people realise that mussels not only taste good, but have proven health benefits, the mussel industry in Havelock is continually expanding to meet the resulting global demand.

Living locally means Karl can quickly respond to a call out 24/7 to help businesses get back to work as soon as possible, whether it’s an oil leak or another issue. And as an owner of mussel farms himself, Karl perfectly understands the industry needs inside and out!

Karl has a considerable number of stamps in his passport having worked in the mining industry in Hong Kong, Russia, Australia and various African countries such as Mali, Guinea, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One memorable job saw him help build a 40 tonne drilling rig in Australia, put it on a truck which they drove into an Antonov airplane, flew to Guinea and drove the drilling rig 1000km to the Liberian boarder, taking a bulldozer with them to create roads as they went.

Karl looks forward to working with more marine businesses in his hometown of Havelock. When you meet him, you might want to ask Karl about his mussel chowder recipe.