Denis Blaney

Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at ReUnion 2010.

Denis Michael Blaney was a product of West Brunswick which, in the 1940s, was very much a working class suburb within a short distance of the Melbourne CBD.

His father Michael worked at a nearby foundry but managed to send Denis to Parade College in East Melbourne and then onto RMIT to round off his education with a degree in Business Administration and Marketing. It was a great start in business.

After an eight year stint at Humes LTD, Denis Blaney entered the road transport industry by joining Ansett Freight Express in 1970 in their marketing department at the Melbourne depot. In March 1974 he was appointed Victorian manager of AFE. The business, Ansett Freight Express, was sold to the TNT group in December 1980 and as part of the assimilation, Denis was then moved to the TNT Head Office to assist in putting it into the new ownership phase. His next career move was to join Ron Finemore in 1988 where he had a four year tenure and became general manager of the Distribution Services Group.

Denis ultimately returned to work at TNT in 1992 where he was the Victorian manager for Comet and responsible for the amalgamation of Comet and Kwikasair. He was instrumental in the introduction of barcode technology at the time. In 1998, Denis was involved in K&S Express where he was responsible for the sale of that business to the NZ Company Mainfreight. His final move was in the year 2000 where, along with Richard Forde, he joined Glen Cameron in a joint venture to re-invent Cameron Interstate Pty Ltd as a viable alternative to the big operators.