Recently promoted to assistant manager on a Puketapu orchard, 32-year-old Ryan May is finding the apple-growing industry a great choice of career.
“They’re screaming out for workers,” he enthuses, having recognised the opportunities opening up five years ago when he returned from an extended holiday working overseas.
After leaving school, Ryan studied mechanical engineering and welding and prefabrication programmes at EIT, developing skills he still finds useful in the workplace.
He went on to work for an Onekawa-based metal fabrication company for six years before heading off on his travels.
Returning to Hawke’s Bay, he knew he didn’t want to work in a factory again. Instead, he gained a foothold in the local apple industry and, joining T&G in December 2013, moved up the career ladder with a mid-July appointment to assistant manager of an orchard block developed by the company in Moteo Pa Road.
“I came to the industry five years ago with little understanding of apple growing,” he admits. “I didn’t know about grafting trees or that it took three to five months to grow a crop. Nor did I appreciate how subject crops are to the weather although, of course, Hawke’s Bay has a great growing climate.”
Ryan feels he lost traction in his last few years at school, and going to EIT, he says, was the best decision for his learning.
Joining EIT’s Horticulture Trainee Programme, he studied part-time for three years to gain an advanced New Zealand Certificate in Horticulture Production (Fruit Production).
Once he’s settled into his new role, he intends to further his education by studying EIT’s newly-restructured New Zealand Diploma in Horticulture Production – Fruit Production strand.
While Ryan feels he came to horticulture studies a bit later than most of his classmates, he believes age isn’t a consideration.
“EIT has a really good campus with everything a student needs. Everyone who taught me was an expert in their field and good to learn from. The tutors knew what they were doing and, wanting us to learn, would go that extra mile to get through to your way of doing things.”
A man who enjoys the outdoors, Ryan is loving the job and the rural setting – working in the orchard with four other permanent staff, assisting the manager in the office and commuting from his Taradale home where he lives with his wife Stacey Baxter just a 10 to 15-minute drive away.
“With a bit of discipline and by applying yourself, you can get ahead by taking up the many career opportunities available,” he says of Hawke’s Bay’s burgeoning pipfuit industry.