Ryan (background) with his father Mark
Inter-haul is proudly a family business, started in 2001 by Mark Waite. Today, Mark runs the business with his wife Alyson and son Ryan, who we persuaded to step into the spotlight and talk to us about how he came to be a part of the business, the challenges they face now and in the future.
It is always interesting to understand how family members become a part of the business, for some it is the realisation of a life-long ambition but for Ryan it was the result of his father drawing him in, bit by bit, over a long period of time. “Honestly, I think I was groomed for it from an early age!”, Ryan laughs. “When I was younger, my friends always assumed I’d just go and work for my dad, but I told them I wasn’t interested. I didn’t realise it then but looking back, I can see I was being prepared for it all along. My old man has been dragging me into work with him since I was nine years old. I used to get £1 for washing a truck. I was using the pressure washer but they had to turn the pressure down otherwise I would end up on my backside! That was how I spent my summer holidays.”
Once Ryan finished school he escaped to the Alps, got his snowboarding qualifications and spent the winters teaching, returning to Wales for the summer months to cover holidays at Inter-Haul. It was actually Mark who first introduced Ryan to snowboarding as a child, they would travel up to Scotland for the weekend, leaving straight from school on Friday afternoon and driving south just in time for school on Monday. So when Ryan was working in the Alps, his father would join him for a week or two. After a few years Ryan acknowledged “Snowboarding had turned into more of a job than a passion - I was teaching five or six days a week, and it stopped being something I did for myself. At the same time my dad and family visited me in the Alps. He told me he was facing some challenges with management back home and mentioned that he could really use someone he could trust to step in and help out. I was hesitant at first, but I decided to give it a go and six years later, here I am.”
It was clearly a good decision because the business has grown considerably since then. One depot in Pontypridd has become two with a second facility in Swindon. Staff numbers have grown from 37 to 92 and the fleet from 15 vehicles to 49. Of course, the significant increase in staff numbers adds complexity but was fascinating to learn that Ryan relishes that, approaching it with a real desire to understand what makes people tick. “Managing people is a real challenge,” Ryan told us, “but it’s something I enjoy, especially when it comes to working with someone who perhaps does not see eye to eye with me. It’s business, I do not take it personally, it’s about finding common ground so that we can work together. I’ve learned to adjust my character a bit to try to get the best out of people, rather than expecting them to change.”
Driver shortages are another frustration, one that is mitigated somewhat by Inter-Haul’s choice of vehicle. ”Our fleet is exclusively MAN for the larger vehicles and we buy them to a very high specification – we appreciate our drivers do a great job for us and we want to look after them. The MAN is a win-win because not only are the MANs popular with the drivers, they are reliable and fuel efficient too.”
Inter-Haul operates in the highly competitive area of pallet transportation but they refuse to be drawn into price competition in order to win business. “Customers sometimes come back to us and show us prices they have been offered and we know they’re not sustainable. We don’t try to match them, there’s no point in being busy fools and we have seen a number of companies going out of business. We prefer to offer a fair price and then deliver outstanding quality.” That quality is endorsed by the Platinum Delivery Performance award which Inter-Haul have received consistently over the years from Pallet-Track network for achieving 99.9% on time delivery.
Ryan is quick to acknowledge the role WG Davies play in achieving outstanding service levels. “We have enjoyed a close working relationship with WG Davies for more than 15 years. When you’re dealing with a family business you’re not just a number – there’s a genuine connection. The quality of the work done on our vehicles is always to the highest standard and the turnaround times are excellent – they really understand our business and we have made no secret of the fact that there is no one else we would trust with the maintenance of our fleet.”
Like WG Davies, Inter-Haul is very much a family business, “We’ve got a lot of families here, with family members working side-by-side. Two of our drivers have sons who wanted to follow in their father’s footsteps, they started in our warehouse and now they drive for us. Our warehouse manager’s sons and cousin all work for us and our HR manager has one son driving for us and another in the warehouse.”
So perhaps it is no surprise that Ryan hopes one day he will work alongside his own children. His transient lifestyle with winters in the Alps, followed by a period immersing himself totally in the business, did not make it easy to build a lasting relationship but today Ryan is settled with Amy in Cardiff and very much looking to the future. “I’d love to think that one day my own children might work with me here, just like I’ve enjoyed working with my dad. In 20 years I’d like to be handing the business over to a family member, just as my dad is starting to do with me.”
Thank you so much for your time, Ryan. It’s been great to hear your story.