WINSTONE ARCHITECTURAL CLADDING LTD
On returning to NZ In 1986, Alister decided it was time to leave the consulting engineering profession behind and join the commercial world. He was engaged by Winstone Glass to establish a contracting organization to undertake the exterior cladding systems for high-rise buildings, commonly called curtainwalls. This was an absolute start up, and required Winstone's to establish a technology agreement with Dowell from Australia, to establish business systems and processes, introduce manufacturing and contracting skills, and recruit a team of people to design, price, manage and work on site.
They successfully launched the company, completing several landmark buildings in the Auckland and Wellington CBD. Winstones were taken over by Fletchers, and they became part of Fletcher Building Products, and then of course the crash of 1987 came along introducing some real challenges with many developers going into receivership, and some significant bad debts resulting. This was really character building as they worked through some dark days.
Ultimately Fletcher sold Winstone Glass and Winstone Architectural Cladding to Pilkingtons, and Alister left the company.