Hans Blazejczyk
Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at ReUnion 2010.
Hans Blazejczyk, born on the 11th October 1939 in Flensburg, Germany, migrated to Western Australia with his family and spent most of his school years in the Collie migrant camp. He moved to Perth in 1957 where he studied for a Mechanical & Design Drawing Diploma at the Perth Technical College in the evening whilst working as an apprentice at the east Perth power station. After completing his apprenticeship he visited Mildura on a family holiday where he met and married Elaine. They returned to Perth in May 1965.
He joined Brambles Manford in June 1965. In his role as their Western Australia fleet engineer he played major roles in the planning and implementation of transport logistics from the early days for almost every major resource development in WA, covering oil and gas search, gold, nickel, vanadium and mineral sands. On many of these projects Hans would work with the project operators to put in place storage, transport for the site development, production transport needs and then delivery to the market place.
Over many years Hans, in his Brambles role, had to sign for equipment purchases for the WA operation. This could range from a fleet of landcruisers, to a 200 tonne roadtrain, mine dumpers, CAT D9s or maybe the odd Leibherr crane for a couple of million dollars.
Hans joined the IRTE (Institute of Road Transport Engineers) which is a professional sector of SOE (Society of Operations Engineers), in 1975 and is still an active member having served as chairman for several years.
Hans has worked on many industry projects along with both industry colleagues and government departments. Brambles hired part of their business to a new entity, Brambles Industrial Services. Hans stayed with that group until retiring in July 1999 after completing 34 years service. He continued contracting for a number of years to Brambles and within the industry.
He now enjoys assisting at his wife's family business, spending time on his hobby farm with his children and grandchildren, and of course, taking note of the new releases and technology as the transport industry progresses.