Ron Bunker

Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at ReUnion 2004.

Ron Bunker started work in road transport  in 1959 at the age of 17. His first job was driving an old Bedford 4x4 truck for the Department of Survey in Woomera and other parts of outback South Australia.

He has worked for Western Transport in Qld driving a Mack B61 and for Silverton Transport doing mail runs into New South Wales. He has carried stock from the southwest of Qld and hauled gas pipes to Moomba gas fields.

In the late 1960s he joined his uncle and mentor, Kevin Bunker, and developed a long distance linehaul operation servicing the national freight forwarders. Ron became the Western Australian manager in 1972 where his keen interest in long distance, remote operations was developed. In 1982 Ron moved to Melbourne as the owner of Bunker Freight Lines. This company has developed over the past 25 years to now be one of the largest sub-contractors in Australia with over 100 prime-movers and approximately 400 pieces of assorted trailering equipment.

Ron was one of the pioneer operators for the early roadtrain operations into Western Australia. He understood the productivity benefits to his customers of using multi-combination vehicles and as a consequence has progressively developed a fleet that is fully interchangeable in the many combinations on offer. Ron has been, and continues to be, a stalwart for industry representation and has supported the road transport industry at local and national levels both financially and by willingly giving his own time. He was always passionate about the need to drive regulatory change and as such was a great supporter of the various road transport industry associations.

Ron Bunker has moved into the less demanding role of spending more time with his four married daughters and his 10 grandchildren but is still committed to providing a safe and efficient company as an example to others in this modern day.