Kat Kaiwai: A life on the Coast

Kat Kaiwai and her crew of 38 (half of them women) were among the heroes on the East Coast when Cyclone Gabrielle hit last year, helping to keep the roads open and making sure that life-saving fuel was available to the only hospital in the area. Kat, who set up her own civil construction company on the East Coast, is a rarity in the industry — something she’s working to change, as she tells Dale in this kōrero.

 

It’s lovely to have a kōrero with you, Katareina. I always start with names, and you’ve got a beautiful name. Are there some middle names? Could you tell us how you got to carry the handles that you wear in life?

My full name is Katareina Whaiora Kaiwai. I’ve actually been called Hubba since I was three, so the only times I’ve been called Katareina are on my birth certificate and when I got in trouble with my grandmothers when they were both alive. But other than that, I’ve only been called Hubba — and now also Kat.

So Katareina comes from one of our nannies in Manutuke. Her name was Katarina, but my mum wanted something a little bit different, so she added the “e” after the “r”.

And Whaiora is my dad’s brother. He had an accident just before my brother and I were born, and so he was in Wellington Hospital. And when we were born in the same hospital, he broke out of ICU to come to our ward and visit us, so my dad named me after him.

Beautiful. Your mum and dad, where are they from? Are they both from the coast?

My mother was brought up in Māhia, and her family come from Pakipaki and Māhia and Manutuke. And my father is from the coast. From Tolaga, Ruatōria and other places along State Highway 35.

How did you get the name Hubba?

I used to think it was because I liked Hubba Bubba bubble gum. But, no. It was when I used to cry. I used to be quite dramatic. I’d get myself so worked up that they’d be like: “Huh what? Hubba?” And so every time I used to cry like that, my dad used to tease me, and go: “Oh, okay, Hubba, come here.” And that’s how I got the name.

How many in your whānau? How many kids?

I have four siblings and four steps.

And where do you come in the lineup?

Me and my twin brother are in the middle. We’ve got an older brother and a younger sister.

And you and your twin have always got on?

I’m very close with my twin. Very, very close. I’m actually close with all my siblings, but obviously had to share the womb with him. We’re not identical, but my mum used to dress us identical, like I’d have the skirt version of whatever he was wearing. It’s quite funny, because, really, we’re totally opposite. All our lives, we’ve had to share everything. All of our presents had: “To Hemi and Hubba.”

So you grew up predominantly in Ruatōria?

No, I was born and bred in Wellington. My dad was a prison officer at Mount Crawford Prison and Rimutaka Prison. When my dad lived here on the coast, there weren’t a lot of job opportunities, and a lot of people from here went into the services or freezing works. Some of them went to the army or the navy — he went into the prison service.

And then me and my siblings used to get shipped back to Ruatōria and Māhia every school holidays. And if anyone from either Māhia or Ruatōria came to Wellington, they’d pretty much come and stay at our house.

There were quite a few people from up the coast in Wellington who were in the prison service, so we lived in a community area around the prison. That was the thing back then.

We moved back to the coast 15 years ago after my father passed away. My dad didn’t have the chance to live here because there were no jobs opportunities for him.

I want to change the narrative for the people who live here today. I don’t want them to have to face the same thing as my dad did 60-something years ago, when he finished school and felt he had to move. I want them to be able to stay if there’s another option or opportunity for them to work on the coast.

I’m curious about how you got into working in civil engineering and construction and that sector. How did that happen?

When we were growing up, we didn’t have gender specific roles in our house. So if the lawns had to be done, and if I was at home and my brothers were doing something else, then my dad would be like: “Do you want to carry the fadge or do you want to mow?” And if I said I wanted to carry the fadge, then he’d mow the lawns, or the other way round. That was normal for us.

My older brother was good in the kitchen. He liked making bread, and so that was fine, too. And then if the dishes had to be done and I was away doing something, then the boys would do it.

And because our parents separated when I was about eight, the same thing happened at my mum’s house and at my dad’s house. We didn’t have a specific dad figure who did it one way and a mum figure who did it a different way. My mum had to do all her own firewood chopping at her house, and my dad had to do the cooking and the clothes washing at his house.

And my dad has 10 siblings, seven of them were boys, and it was quite normal for me to go to the rugby or go out to the farm.

How did I get into civil? I was doing contract admin. I was a pen-pusher. When I wanted to go out into the field, it wasn’t a hard transition for me. And I was lucky because people already knew that side of me, and they were very supportive. Like, when I started at Te Puia Springs, I was the only female out there. And not once did I ever feel out of place — and not once did any of the men I worked with make me feel out of place. They actually quite enjoyed it, because I had an office background, so I could help them with their paperwork.

So it was like a two-way street, because I didn’t know how to drive any of the machines or the trucks back then. So it was a case of: “You help me with my paperwork and while you’re doing that, I’ll get this machine ready, and then we’ll be able to teach you how to operate it.” So, it was just about helping each other, really.

Who were you working for?

I worked at Fulton Hogan in Gisborne. That was my first taste of civil. I went there to work in contract administration. Then I started doing road maintenance on State Highway 35 and State Highway 2 for NZTA through Fulton Hogan. I went out in the field, and the rest is history.

So you were working on the contractual side, and then, in what many would consider a very bold move, you established Tairāwhiti Contractors. What feelings did you have when you decided to establish your own company?

It was more the issue of having to travel to work in Gisborne while being based up the coast — nothing to do with the company I was working for. Also, there was no civil works assessor in the whole of Tairāwhiti. So I signed up to get that qualification. That journey took me four years, because I decided to do four strands instead of just the one.

It was really hard, and I almost got to the point of giving up and only doing one paper instead of all four. But I was really lucky with this one guy, Grant Radovanovic, who now works for CCNZ (Civil Contractors New Zealand). The pastoral care that he gave me enabled me to succeed.

Also, at that time, there might’ve been only one other woman in the whole of the region who was a department manager. Everyone else was male. They never made us feel any less, but it just stuck out. People would be like: “Oh, are you the only girl?” And I was like: “No, there’s this one other chick. She’s there too.” But it was like: “Oh, yeah, true. Actually, there’s not many of us.”

I ended up becoming an assessor for Tairāwhiti because they didn’t have any at the time for civil works. Luckily, I’m a go-getter, and I’ve pushed through the obstacles. Other people who have so much potential could be turned off by having to navigate the challenges for them and their families without much support, or because they don’t see the opportunities that are there in the background.

Good on Grant. Anyway, those four papers that you did, could you tell us what they were?

I did road maintenance, concrete non-structural, road construction, and earthworks.

Well, good on you for sticking with it. I respect your honesty in saying that there were hard times but you hung in there, and here we are today. You’re building a company, which is a great thing for anybody, but for a wahine Māori on the coast with only a couple of wāhine in the space, it comes across as a gutsy move. And I note that a third of those that you employ for Tairāwhiti Contractors are wāhine. How many people have you got working for the crew now?

We have about 38 working here. We’ve had quite a few females who’ve had babies, and they pretty much go through the life cycle of being a mum. We end up being a kōhanga, because they want to come back to work and bring their babies with them.

People are acknowledging the way you responded in the weather emergencies. We’ll get to that in just a tick, but what about the weather bombs that hit the East Coast? If there’s a forecast that says there’s a heavy rain warning for the East Coast, what goes through your mind the night before the weather arrives?

You just have your everyday prep, because we’ve had weather events for years up here. So we pretty much know where all the pinch points are gonna be, what gear needs to be where, who needs to be notified, how you’re going to get the notifications out, whether it’s businesses trying to leave the region or businesses trying to get into the region. Plus you’ve got the schools, you’ve got your clinics, you’ve got the one hospital on the coast, and then you’ve got suppliers and whatever else.

I suppose we’ve become experts in our field because it’s happened to us so many times. We have our own emergency preparedness plans, but a lot of it you run out of your head, because it’s like the same-old, same-old that you could do multiple times during the year.

Are you involved in Civil Defence as well?

We pretty much sit alongside Civil Defence. When we had Cyclone Gabrielle, we all worked out of the same building, which was the fire station, and that way they’ve got the roading, healthcare services, police, fire, and whatever other volunteers all under the one roof. And that means you can all give your situation reports and what’s happening within your sector.

So if power needs to be reinstated down a particular road, because they’ve got maybe 50 families down there, then that’s where the priorities and focus will go. Same if there are children and people with health needs or disabilities down a road. That means the healthcare people know that they can deliver their medications to those patients.

Then there’s the whole thing of whether they can fly supplies in, or whether it has to be ground-based, depending on what the weather is. I suppose roading has the most information because that’s how most people travel and that’s where you’ll get all your road closures. We tend to be the information hub for everybody else on the coast.

But amid all of that is this wonderful community spirit. The whakawhanaungatanga and the resilience of people who call the coast home. What stands out for you in that regard?

I think it just goes to show what people are like on the coast. They have big hearts.  Everybody understands what everybody’s going through. They understand that elderly people can’t get in and out. They understand that farmers have stock that are their livelihoods, and they need to go and check on those. They understand that pregnant women may need to get to the hospital urgently.

If you have to wait for a contractor who has to come from Gisborne, they might be four hours away. Whereas, you might have a tractor that’s just down the road and a chainsaw and some chains — and people are going to go to where a tree has fallen and get the tree off the road in 20 minutes, rather than have the rest of the coast cut off for four hours because you’re waiting for a contractor.

You learn to be versatile.

Did you think someone was pulling your leg when they said that you’re up for a King’s Birthday honour?

I thought it was a computer scam, to be quite honest, because it got emailed to me. I was about to delete it and then I saw an attachment that had my full name on there: Katareina Whaiora Kaiwai. And I thought to myself: “Hang on a minute, nobody calls me that.” And then I was a bit scared that somebody had got my whole life details. So I clicked into the attachment and had a look and it was a biography about everything that I’ve done: the businesses, the lunches in schools and all of that sort of stuff.

Then I clicked on another one and it said about the King’s Service Medal on it. And it also said it was private and confidential. So I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone.

Where is this all heading do you think? What goals have you set yourself for business and outside of business?

I’m going to continue to advocate for our region and advocate for women. And not just in this sector but also in whatever other male-dominated sectors there are.

I do have another side venture, but I can’t reveal it. It’s a case of “watch this space”, but it’s to do with civil and both women and men. But, yeah, all I want to do is really advocate for our rural communities, for the work that should be and that needs to be done for them, and also for opportunities for young people, and even old people.

There’s so much opportunity out there in civil, and there’s so many places you could travel with that work, and that’s what I want to continue to show people.

You’re in a high-pressure gig. A lot of people relying on you to make good decisions. How do you strengthen yourself on the inside and keep your wairua strong? What sort of things do you do outside of work?

I like to travel a lot. I don’t like being stuck in the same place all the time. And I have my children.

A lot of the stuff that people would class as work, I don’t see as work. It’s the types of things that I enjoy doing, but it’s associated with work, so even though people are like: “Oh, you’re working this weekend,” it doesn’t feel like that for me.

But yes, I like to travel out of the region and see how they’re managing their roads or what types of innovative ideas they’re doing. I like beaches and I like warm weather and I like quiet. So, sometimes, in order to fully get away from work, I have to travel somewhere where I’ve got no reception.

I’ve got Starlink now, but if I don’t want to be contacted and if I want some peace and quiet, then I’ll just go up to the family farm and chill out.

How many kids you got?

I’ve got three, and there are big spaces between them. I’ve got an older son who’s 23. I’ve got a 10-year-old daughter, and then I’ve got my youngest boy, who’s five.

Kia ora, and congratulations and thank you on behalf of all those you’ve helped along the way. They could make Highway 35 the biggest motorway in the world, but then you’d get more visitors.

That’ll be good! Pump some more money into our region!

 

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

E-Tangata, 2024