I'm a plumber by trade, was involved at a maintenance plumbing company for about eight years. I did my apprenticeship in Hillbrow, Braamfontein and Berea. It was a really, really great time where the plumbers that were teaching me had been around for about 30 years. And that experience was invaluable. From plumbing, I progressed into equipment hire, 'Hard Hat Equipment Hire' was the result.

I joined the Master Builders Association North and over the years got onto the Executive Committee - in 2017 I became the president of the Master Builders Association.

The Sir Jon name comes from the slang word for a toilet - a "Jon". I had a toilet hire company and we all know the big names around that time - such as "Royal Flushes" for example. I thought I needed a name that also sounded quite fancy, hence the name Sir Jon Hire. As a plumber, we hired a lot of equipment. We always had rammers on site for compacting of the trenches, we had water pumps where necessary - and so progressing into an equipment hire company was a simple decision.

...when I started as an apprentice plumber in Johannesburg, we worked in a lot of buildings with basements - and most of them had sumps pumping out water.
I very quickly realised that Jo'burg particularly, has a lot of water below ground and that it's quite shallow - typically between 20 to 50 metres deep on average. Through experience, we know roughly where we can find a plentiful supply of water. Bedfordview, for example, has unbelievable amounts of water. And a lot of guys are irrigating straight from the borehole into the irrigation systems. In other areas there's not as much. And it's through a little bit of experience, but as I say, a geological survey shows us the ideal locations to drill in.