The history of Quality Performers in the eyes of "The Taranaki Daily News" — NZ newspaper
Chances are, if you're a woman into fencing or martial arts in Europe or America the vital piece of safety equipment you will be wearing comes from New Plymouth. Quality Performers has been producing chest protectors for sportswomen since 1981. Now, nearly two decades on, the latest "CoolGuard" is hitting the export market. Already many thousands of guards are exported each year, and if this new product is greeted on the other side of the world with the same enthusiasm as its two predecessors, Max Rutherford is onto another winner. Jayne Hulbert talks to the man behind the company: (With acknowledgment to Taranaki Daily News.)
The cluttered entrance at 16 Buller St gives little hint of the successful export business that is Quality Performers. A single door with a sign that could do with a fresh coat of paint tells visitors they are in the right place. Not that many people call. Rutherford's customers are dealt with through phones and modems.
Inside the building, machinery that once would have moulded the plastic shields is quiet. High demand for Rutherford's product means it is now manufactured at a plastic factory in Bell Block. But it's from here the 58-year-old pretty much goes at it alone as he deals with clients from around the globe. He knows his company has what they want. He's been in this game for a long time. But this same insignificant-looking building, between the rubber factory and a bingo club, gives away no clues to Max Rutherford's past life.
Rutherford walked out of New Plymouth Boys' High School the day he turned 15. "I said 'righto, I'm off'. My schoolmaster asked me where I was going, I said 'I've got an apprenticeship at the Ford garage'. He told me I was crazy. I was top of the school for tech drawing and he said I should go to university, but I didn't want to spend five years doing that. I wanted to go out and enjoy the world. I wanted to be a motor mechanic. The schoolmaster told me I'd regret it, but I don't. I have no regrets at all."
Luckily Rutherford followed his passion for cars and didn't take the unwanted advice. Seven years later he was off to England in a move that would see him receiving an award as the top motor racing mechanic in the world.
"Thirty years ago I would never have seen myself 'into women's underwear'. I thought I would always be under the bonnet of a car."
In 1965 South London was about as different from Taranaki as Formula one racing is from chest protectors. But it was here that Rutherford soon got work. A letter of introduction from an uncle in the know saw him quickly land a job with a racing team. But for a man who says he has motor racing fuel in his bloodstream the best was yet to come. As Formula One world champion Jackie Stewart's chief mechanic, Rutherford was at the top.
"Stewart was a great guy to work for. There was a lot of stress in the pits, but he always made sure when he got out of the car at the end of the race to thank the mechanics before he did anything else – it meant a lot." Motor racing is life in the fast lane; it can't go on forever. Rutherford had intended an 18-month working holiday, but five years later home was calling, especially now he was married. With new Irish wife Christina, it was time to get back down under. Born in New Plymouth, a place Rutherford says is one of the best in the world, for him there was no question that's where the newly weds would settle.
It's 1970 and back in New Plymouth the Hire Centre, started by the Rutherford's, is the beginning of a long and meandering road, which ends at today's CoolGuard. "The Hire Centre was super successful. We were doing really well. Muldoon (Prime Minister at the time) came along and said that anyone exporting will get tax relief on their other business. We bought Egmont Leather and Canvas, who had just begun exporting chest protectors."
When nuns from Sacred Heart College were concerned about their girls hurting themselves playing sport, they asked around and ended up dealing with an orthotics specialist at the Taranaki Base hospital, Ces Riches. Mr. Riches was more used to making splints, limbs and other medical aids, than chest guards for young sportswomen. But with typical kiwi ingenuity he made the mould for the Econo-Guard at home in his oven. Riches patented it; Egmont Leather and Canvas exported it. By 1981 it was Rutherford and Quality Performers who were exporting it.
"Since Max has taken over he has done some great things. Slowly he has really improved the product," says Riches. First came the Econo-Guard, but Quality Performers second guard was the Maxi - his name is Max after all. But it is this appropriately christened chest protector which really boosted export sales. The original guard was bulky and uncomfortable; Rutherford set about making it better.
He enlists a bit of help in this area. For the last five years Stella Lenihan has been Rutherford's crash test dummy. Lenihan has a history of involvement in contact sports and would not be without her 'Maxi'. In her role as New Zealand women's karate coach she is the perfect person to test Rutherford's guards.
"I use the Maxi-Guard all the time," she says. "I will often wear it for four hours a night and I wouldn't be without it. Max will sometimes ask me to look out for certain points, like if I get too hot and sweaty. I'm overseas with karate all the time and Max's product has taken over the market, it's huge in Europe. He just keeps on improving it."
The Cool-Guard is just that, cooler than previous guards. Two plastic "cups" are inserted into a specially designed crop top and they can easily be removed. Rutherford hopes this new chest protector will be used by women for other sports like soccer, jogging and aerobics. For Rutherford, improving the product is basic business sense: "My philosophy is that you never stop still. Just because something sells well you don't set your design, you try and improve it all the time."
You can see he means it. For a man small in stature Rutherford is big on ideas. The glasses perched on his nose do nothing to hide the determination in his eyes. His grey- haired head is constantly coming up with ways to make things more efficient. Rutherford is a man on a mission. But these days he knows how to slow down. He took a look at his life when his eldest brother died at 62. Rutherford was 52 and he was working too much. "I thought, hell, if I was only to live for another 10 years I had better start enjoying myself. I figured I had been a workaholic for 30 years. Now I've slowed down, it's a good way to be. I'm not going to be the richest man in the cemetery, but I'm not going to die young either."
It just doesn't fit, the idea of Rutherford slowing down. And it's obviously something he struggles with himself: "One half of me is rushing forward and coming up with new ideas to expand the business. The other half is saying, do I really want to keep up this pace."
Perhaps the Cool-Guard is enough to keep Rutherford going for a while, but probably not. With impending trips to Europe and America to find new markets and increase his exports, it's obvious which half of him has won this time. A cartoon behind Rutherford's desk claims, "Tomorrow we are going to get organized". Clearly the sign needs to come down.
