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FACTFILE: MILL DELIVERIES BASED: Millstreet Town, Co Cork. FOUNDED: 1986

28th November 1996
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Page 38, 28th November 1996 — FACTFILE: MILL DELIVERIES BASED: Millstreet Town, Co Cork. FOUNDED: 1986
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by partners Gordon O'Keefe and John Lucy. CONTACT: Gordon O'Keefe, managing director. FLEET: 28 vehicles, mostly Scania and Volvo above 7.5 tonnes including an artic, two Scania 113s, six 17tanners. 10 Isuzu vans for local deliveries. Buys new. Most recent purchases, Scania 94D, Volvo FI6 during October 1996. SPECIALITY CONTRACT: Delivering computer components in the south of Ireland. TURNOVER: £1.6m.

Viewers of the 1993 Eurovision Song Contest will remember Millstreet as the tiny village in Cork which played host to that year's competition in a glittering purpose-built venue.

At the time the very place conjured up images of eccentric millionaire businessmen grafted on to Irish rural life, using their financial clout to show off to the world. The reality is somewhat different. The town is not really tiny, it has its share of modern industry and if our interviewee, haulier Gordon O'Keefe, is a millionaire, or indeed eccentric, he's not saying. But, like your man who put on the Eurovision, he does have an eye for the main chance. Ten years ago he was an employed driver: "There was a lot of local industry in the town and I saw the need for a reliable courier service in the area," says O'Keefe. "Like every haulage company we took a chance and started up."

With original partner John Lucy in tow, the pair used their own money to lease two vans, a Toyota and a Turbo Daily Fast forward 10

years and the fleet has grown to 28 and O'Keefe has bought out Lucy. He has learned to specialise in moving computer components and electronic goods within the south of Ireland.

"You have to target your niche in the market and give it your full commitment," he says. On a smaller scale, this includes providing support vehicles between a manufacturing plant and an assembly plant which Molex has set up in Shannon and Millstreet.

Within the last two months O'Keefe has added two vehicles to the fleet to service a recently-won £150,000 Mitsubishi contract in the south of Ireland, which involves collecting from a central warehouse and supplying retail outlets.

But the firm's most complex and, at £600k a year, perhaps most valuable contract is with Alps Electrics, a Japanese keyboard manufac turer based in Milistreet which produces keyboards for household names such as Apple, AST, Dell, Wang, IBM and Compaq. There seems to be a terrific demand for PCs in Ireland.

"We have a very young, highly-educated population—that's why Alps came here," explains O'Keefe. It may also explain why his business has grown 30% this year. "In Ireland you cannot lose at the moment," says O'Keefe. "There are lots of new companies starting up."

He has two curtainsiders dedicated to supplying Alps' customers in Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Shannon. He has a three-vehicle dedicated contract fetching and delivering components for Apple Computers in Cork. Then there are regular spot-hire services to Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Dublin. Three trucks leave Millstreet every morning for the

"At 8am they have no work, by the time they get to Dublin the work is coming in all the time," he says, The vehicles collect goods, often computer components, from a Dublin warehouse which six owner drivers working for K&L in the city have been busy filling.

Complete service

O'Keefe is keen to offer a complete service, even down to something quaintly called "detrashing", which means removing packaging and assembling parts for the production line.

"We provide a pick and pack centre for Apple Computers," explains O'Keefe. "They have six types of keyboard in 30 different languages; we pack the quantities of different keyboards in different languages for the European market."

At this moment his three-year-old son George scampers over to join in the photographs. George has been cheerfully enjoying the November sunshine and singing his heart out all morning. But his future plans for dad's business reveal that he may take it down a different path: "I want to be a fireman and I want red trucks," he declares firmly.


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