Bernie CULL Obituary

CULL, Bernie. It is with great sadness we acknowledge the passing of our dear friend and colleague, Bernie Cull on March 11th, 2015 in Sydney. Bernie started his career with Maritime Services, then Hamburg Sud's New Zealand agents, on 16th August 1976 as sales representative in the Dunedin office. After several years of grooming in the commercial area by Arthur Giles, Bernie was appointed as Invercargill Branch Manager in January 1979. Bernie covered the Southland container shipping customer base with great enthusiasm. He was also the company's representative in Bluff handling the fishing activities of the 'Hanseatische Hochsee Fischerei Company'. This was a joint venture of the Oetker group and was the important start-up phase of the company's Southern Ocean deep sea fishing activities. Subsequently the Polish government also became involved with this programme and Bernie became a true 'statesman' managing these interests with aplomb and enhancing the company's reputation in the deep south. Bernie earned the nickname of "Orange Roughy" due to his passion and drive in these activities. In November 1982 Bernie returned to Dunedin to assume the Branch Manager role on the retirement of Arthur Giles, and through its sub agency activities, remained close to the Invercargill market base. Bernie built up the Dunedin office activities successfully handling some of New Zealand's largest export customers in the important refrigerated cargo sector as well as adding the agency representation of NYK, including their container, bulk and cruise ship activities. Later the husbandry operations of Stolt Tankers and ANL were added to his responsibilities. Bernie served his staff with great loyalty and vision, and his customers with professionalism and drive, he deservedly earned market wide respect setting the benchmark for managing the south island shipping community. Bernie's passing is a tremendous loss for all his friends and colleagues within and outside of the shipping industry. Our thoughts and condolences are with his wife Hilary, his son Clem and daughters Sophie and Katie as well as his sisters and grandchildren.