A born and bred Sydney guy, Greg now calls Queensland home.
This is his story:

After leaving School in year 12, Greg’s career started off in Banking, many years ago with a vision when he left School to be an Accountant. Numbers are his thing. But, when the Accountancy course went from number crunching to studying Accounting Law, Greg ran a mile and sought a different vision. The years at the Bank, being his first Full Time Employment, were a great lesson in Customer Service, Accuracy of Work and Teamwork but a decision needed to be made if Banking / Accounting was not going to be his thing.

He left the bank and joined his Families business manufacturing Ladies Fashion Shoes (you may be familiar with the Brand names like Sandler and Jane Debster). Greg was 6th Generation in his Family to join the Business.

Looking back on this time he understands how advanced and ahead of its time the Company was. Manufacturing in Australia was and is tuff and only the great succeed. The lessons learnt and coached through the 12 years at J Robins, in the late 80’s and early 90’s are still being used today. The ability of people to do what they thought was not possible, to see Production Line Employees direct and manage their own, were experiences realised daily at J Robins. They empowered their staff of all levels to think for themselves, set goals, mange non-compliance. They had teams who were responsible for hiring and firing their own team members. Exciting and rewarding times but there was one problem.

The deregulation of Footwear Manufacturing in Australia and the continued increase of overseas competition send a huge warning to Greg as then being in his early 30’s, could see that he could become the most experienced and sought after resource to Australian Footwear Manufacturing but have no job because Footwear manufacturers in Australia were already shutting down.

Sadly, Greg decided to leave the Family Business and joined Cerebos Foods as one of eight new Manufacturing Team Leaders. Here the job was initiating a cultural change program throughout the Manufacturing team, a total of 300+ employees. Greg spent 8 years at Cerebos and progressed through the Corporate ranks winning a managerial Scholarship to Darden University in USA along the way. Greg resigned as the National Operations Manager overseeing all Manufacturing In Australia and the last of the 8 Team Leaders to resign. The decision to leave was based purely on his inability to progress further within the Company as his Manager was not about to resign any time soon.

Greg then joined Unilever as their Operations Manager overseeing the Streets Ice Cream manufacturing plant. An introduction to Australian Unionism and a real change of scenery having come from a fully engaged, empowered workforce both at J Robins and Cerebos to a very strong “Us and Them” culture at Streets. Very challenging and constantly felt like he was taking one step forward and 3 steps back. Greg was provided with a trip visiting many other Unilever Ice Cream plants around the world meeting fellow Operation Managers to discuss, compare and then to incorporate best practice back in Australia.

During his time at Unilever, Greg was also renovating his house himself and whilst he had always done the general handyman jobs himself, this was a step up. During the renovations, Greg and his family visited a local home show and it was there he met some Franchisees from Hire A Hubby Property Maintenance.

The timing was perfect as Greg was already looking for his next employer and loving what he was doing at home, so both paths seemed to meet. Time will show that just one month after that meeting, Greg had bought a Hire A Hubby Franchise and the opportunity to run his own Business had begun.

Greg was a finalist as a new Franchise Of The year and won the State Award a few years later for best Performing Franchisee running a Business with employees. 5 years into his 7 years with Hire A Hubby, Greg purchased his second territory and at that time was only one of four Franchise’s in Australia to own two territories. Married and then with young kids a massive decision was about to be made, sell the two Franchises and look for a new start within Australia.

Sydney was becoming an uncomfortable and too busy place to live and with the kids the age they were, it was now or never. Greg applied for an Manufacturing Operation Manager’s role on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. The Company flew him up for an interview and offered him the job that day. A new beginning was upon the Family. New Home, New Schools, New Job, New State. The job that brought the Family to Qld was unfortunately made redundant just 14 months later and the immediate realisation that work opportunities on the Sunshine Coast are nothing like that in Sydney.

Greg often flew back to Sydney on Sunday nights, working on the tools for a number of Hire A Hubby owners who needed help and flying home Friday afternoon’s. It was during these trips that Greg realised that the Admin side of these guys Businesses needed help. As a guy on the tools for them, he saw first hand how those with organised Admin far exceeded those that were trying to do it all themselves and so, given his background both Commercially and as a Small Business Owner, an Admin Company was born.

Admins the Answer, having started with just Greg, now employs many staff, provides Admin support for Businesses all over Australia and continually expanding in helping any Tradie Business get their Admin sorted.