Anita Newport: young mother, business woman, and sustainability practitioner

May 15th, 2010
By David Armstrong

Any young adults looking for a role model on how to balance family life, running a business and being involved in the community could do worse than learning from mother of two and Parkes Automotive co-owner, Anita Newport.

Driven by the realisation early in her challenging childhood that it was up to her how her life would turn out, Anita has set goals for herself - and already achieved many - to ensure her own children have a happy and purposeful upbringing in a rich and sustainable community.

She was raised in Nelson by her step-father and helped care for her baby half-brother (her mother was seriously ill). Although she thought her limited childhood was "quite normal" at the time, early on she became aware that in order to live a full life she had to do it herself.

"I had nothing to fall back on," she says. "I could either sink or swim. It was up to me and my own resources to determine how I was going to turn out."

After leaving high school, she trained as a chef because she had always loved cooking. Fishing was in her blood (her grandfather was a Norwegian fisherman) and familiarity with fishing fleets in the Nelson port led her, aged 17, to becoming a galley hand and then chef on deep sea fishing boats. For the main part of 10 years she looked after crews of up to 50 people on seven-week expeditions.

"It's not that I loved that way of life," she says, "but I had a goal then to save money so eventually I could provide a better lifestyle for myself and my family when I had one. That was the best way for me to achieve that, and it's paid off."

Another up-side of the experience was that eight years ago she met her partner (and husmand to be), Andrew Parkes, while at sea. Motueka-born Andrew was a chief engineer - in fact he was New Zealand's youngest ever marine chief engineer. After a few years the couple decided it was time to "come ashore" and set up a business of their own together.

Now the connections get rather interesting. Andrew had done his apprenticeship at Pioneer Motors in Greenwood Street, and his father Robin was and still is a mechanic there. The owners, Paul and Billie Hawkes, were looking to sell. As well, Andrew's parents had owned the business for many years previous to Paul.

"So there was history there. Andrew's family was here in Motueka. It made it easy for us to decided to take on the business here. We felt we could put our own stamp on it, try some new things, give it a new name and a fresh start."

They bought a property at Upper Moutere - "a compromise, about mid-way between our birthplaces in Motueka and Nelson". They shared the business work, with Anita running the office full-time. She had studied accountancy, marketing and taxation papers by correspondence in preparation - another goal set and achieved.

Things changed soon after they relaunched the business - along came daughter Shelby, now aged 3. It was a problematic pregnancy culminating early, and Anita spent significant time in hospital before and after. But she didn't rest - she did the business administration via laptop from her bed.

From then on Anita switched to part-time - presently she's in the garage office one day a week but does other admin tasks from home. When she's in the office, Andrew is home being primary carer, so all child rearing tasks are shared.

Second daughter Bella was born (quite straightforward this time) 15 months ago. But Andrew has been unwell for some time now, so some juggling of work and childcare is still required.

"Both the business and our family are big parts of our lives," Anita says. "Some people say we're lucky, but luck's got nothing to do with it. We planned it to be this way and we do have to juggle things sometimes. Andrew is also very goal-driven and excelled early in things he wanted to do."

Anita has already made a mark for herself in Motueka through her involvement in several community business networks and projects, including Our Town Motueka.

"If you're in business in a small community, it's important to understand how it works and become involved," she says. "Our goal was to run a business that gave us a comfortable lifestyle and have good quality family time, but also that we wouldn't compromise the happiness of our staff, the community or our environment. Finding the balance and being involved in things is important."

She now has fingers in several community pies - Our Town Motueka, Her Business Network (where she gets motivated by other successful businesswomen), Enviroschools, the Sustainable Business Network, and Motueka Online (Parkes is a founding sponsor) are just some. They've won several awards for their environmental initiatives in a traditionally dirty automotive industry.

Anita says Parkes Automotive has cut its waste products by a whopping 80 percent since it was relaunched. For example, all their food scraps go to their worm farm, and all their used oil is sent for recycling. Every aspect of waste from the business is measured so they can ways of reducing and recycling.

"As a teenager I used to say that I wanted to take over the world. But making my world a better place for people around me is an important goal for me now." She believes that having to help look after her half-brother when she was a child helped her to form this ethic.

Her main goals now are to complete her Business Diploma, look at further ways of improving business sustainability, and spending more quality time with the children while they are still young.

A few weeks ago Anita and Andrew moved into Motueka, mainly so that they can be closer to their business but also because their two growing children would soon be wanting to become active in the community.

"Motueka's the sort of community size where you can make a difference if you want to put the effort in. And people appreciate it when you do."

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