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our vision, values, history, and us

Providing a quality service every time

McCarthy Transport began its journey with a simple yet ambitious vision: to provide innovative distribution solutions to New Zealand's forestry industry. Our story traces back to 1949, when Rex Burgess and Arthur McCarthy laid the foundation stone with just a single truck and a commitment to excellence. From those humble beginnings, McCarthy Transport has steadily expanded its operations, driven by a relentless pursuit of customer satisfaction and operational excellence.

1949

A partnership between Rex Burgess and Arthur McCarthy (1 st Gen) started in 1949 with one truck carting timber from a mill near National Park to the railhead. The market started to grow with 2-3 log trucks carting Native logs to a few different mills in the Ruapehu area.

1971

Rex passed away unexpectedly in 1971 and Arthur bought Rex’s shares and carried on as AL McCarthy focused on Log cartage with 2 trucks.
The fleet started to grow again with Arthur's son Mark joining the business full-time in the late 70s.

1978

A key part of the McCarthy History and still to this day, was the start of the Winstone Karioi Pulp mill in 1978 which Mark delivered the first load into and Current Winstone CEO Dave Anderson started at the mill. When the pulp mill got up and going it required more and more lumber as it grew so to keep up with this demand, our fleet grew too!

1988

Arthur Passed away in 1988 and Mark (2nd Gen) bought Arthur’s shares from his sisters and continued to build the brand.

1988

From 1988 onwards, With the demand from Winstone’s required the fleet to grow. What started as 8 trucks in 1988 to around 33 in 1992, most of which were double shifted from Sunday afternoon to Saturday morning to keep up with the workload. In the same time Winstone’s had purchased 2 local forests and a sawmill close to their current pulp mill operation which further increased demand for wood and wood chip products to be carted.

1992

Between 1992-1998 Head office moved from the family home and yard in Raetihi out to Karioi with a new workshop built to keep up with the Maintenance of the fleet.

We saw more growth not just in the Ruapehu area but also Whanganui/Manawatu, Taranaki, Napier and Tokoroa where the fleet started to expand further with the acquisition of 3 smaller log transport companies to keep up with the workload which had increased to include cartage of woodchip from 2 mills in the Wairarapa and 1 in Waverley on top of the Tangiwai cartage. 

1998

1998-2004 a big sawmill had been shipped out from the USA and set up in Whanganui which opened up the opportunity to have machinery operating in this mill to load log decks and move more woodchip and also Timber from Whanganui to Auckland and then working them back down the island to bring logs back to the mill as well as open up more avenues to achieve utilisation of other log trucks with the increased demand as the mill hit its straps, in this time our head office had moved from our Karioi Branch down to Wanganui due to the growth of the business and also access to better internet and services which weren’t available at Karioi. At this time the fleet size was around 65 trucks.

2004

Around 2004 the export log market took a big dive and the Whanganui sawmill also shut down which caused a massive restructure of the business going from double shifted units back to single shift and having to sell some specialized equipment, the Tokoroa part of the business also lost a big contract and was downsized.

2007

In 2007 the Napier hub was sold off to an Australian company, bringing the fleet down to 52 trucks.

2008

In 2008 an opportunity came up to operate in the Wairarapa with the purchase of an existing log cartage company. This came with a contract to cart for Juken New Zealand out of their own forests carting to the JNL mill and to the Port in Wellington, the condition of the 14-truck purchase meant we had to replace the whole lot within a 2-year period

2008

Between 2008 and now, the company has expanded greatly. We have built a new workshop and yard in Masterton which can park over 50 trucks but currently has 35 and is also used to store logs when required. We have increased our loader fleet to service both Karioi and Tangiwai operations.

We rebuilt our fleet in Central Hawkes Bay, servicing an existing Major client combined with a Log Transfer yard to help alleviate delays from the Port of Napier due to storage and shipping. We moved our Whanganui operation to open another workshop to better service the Whanganui fleet.

2024

Currently managed by Matt and Mike McCarthy (3rd Gen), Our company vision is to provide innovative distribution solutions to New Zealand's forestry industry. With an asset portfolio of 150 trucks, 16 loader machines, 3 mechanical and 1 engineering workshop that we use to maintain, service and build our own logging gear and trailers with other projects ongoing for diversification related to log handling and cartage.

our Vision

Our company vision is to provide innovative distribution solutions to New Zealand's forestry industry. We are committed to supporting our customers by delivering a cost effective, high quality service, while maintaining a challenging and rewarding work environment for our people

Our Values

At McCarthy Transport our family values are what makes us who we are. We are Proud People Loyal Service and our people are proud to wear that as their patch. Proud People Loyal Service is at the heart of everything we do; the decisions we make, the people we employ, how we service our customers and how we support our communities. Clink on the image to learn more about what our values mean to us.

the best technology in our own workshops

Technology

Using the best to provide the best

At McCarthy Transport we utilize the best technology so that we can maximize our fleet utilization, keep up to date with maintenance and servicing, monitor health and safety, consult with our workers and more. Some of the technology we use include:

  • WSX is a forestry logistics tool that is focused on the planning and execution of the wood flow process for the forest industry. Each of our trucks has a tablet with the WSX app that enables jobs to be synced from dispatch to the trucks in live updates.
  • EROAD is a premium kiwi invented GPS tracking system used for automatic RUC purchasing and rebates as well as a live GPS feed of the fleet
  • EROAD Inspect enables drivers to add feedback regarding the condition of a vehicle, asset or trailer, and include photographic evidence, as required.
  • Engage is an integrated employee experience platform designed to streamline compliance processes while fostering a culture of engagement – health, safety, compliance, and HR all on a single easy to use system.
  • EROAD Day logbook simplifies fatigue management by enabling drivers to capture work and rest hours via a smartphone or tablet.