Mervyn Liddell

MERVYN LIDDELL(Merv) first became involved in the transport industry in 1950 when helping out his father driving his Q model Fargo. His father grew the business to five trucks over the years and it gave the youngster a keen interest in road transport and after serving a mechanics apprenticeship and gaining an engineering certificate he joined Bob Whitehead at RFW Permatrack in 1967. Merv was the foreman of the production line. It was a busy time at RFW with many 4x4, 6x4, 8x4 rigids, prime movers, coaches, fire tender chassis and heavy duty mining trucks were manufactured.

In 1986 Merv joined the military in the Vietnam Special Forces division as a Commando and later in the SAS. He also taught driver training. Once service in Vietnam was complete he enrolled as a cadet pilot in military light aircraft. He still enjoys flying today. After that Merv decided that he'd do some long haul truck driving. For the next four years he drove all over the country for Nilson Bros and then Ridolfo Transport in all sorts of truck including Commers and Leylands. After being marooned at Kynuna for a while he returned to Sydney to drive for Lindsay Bros until 1975 when he went to work for Saab-Scania Truck division as a sales engineer. A couple of years he later he went to Mack Trucks where he stayed for the next nine years. His job was complex and involved training, testing, consulting and selling.

During these years Merv completed a four year Advanced Marketing Certificate and Advanced Management Certificate. This was followed by a Logistics Management at the Graduate School of Management at Sydney University. When his family situation changed Merv decided to be an owner driver and purchased an immaculate 1976 Atkinson 3800. He built the business to five vehicles with a storage facility for 200 pallets. Unfortunately a crush injury in 1996 meant the business was sold up. After five years in recovery and rehabilitation Scotts Refrigerated Freightways offered Merv a job driving.

Merv was promoted to operations and eventually to Driver Trainer Manager a job he still enjoys and does today in 2017.