About Us

Asbestos & Meth Busters Ltd, History and Services

Asbestos & Meth Busters Ltd is a new company recently set up with all the services trading as KTeam which also includes gutterguard and cleaning. The same group of contractors and managing director as Kowhai House Painting and Texture Removals Ltd.

K Team have expanded the Auckland operation to cover Waikato, Coromandel and Northland. The main focus has switched to asbestos removal which they have been involved in for over 20 years taking off textures and now also includes meth cleaning as well as gutterguard and cleaning.

Some staff at Saturday toolbox meeting

KTeam

The K Team is just that - ‘a team’ made up of some great people.

The KTeam Management, sales and admin.

Lance, Tony, Tina and Annmarie

The Contracting Team

Licensed Contractors

Tony, Kevin, Simon, Andy, Neru, Joel, Marcello, Joe and Victor.

Trainees

Sam, Thiago, Isabella, Tolu, Star, Fetu Jnr, Ravinder, Pete, Vee and Nei

S.Russell (name on truck) Lance’s grandfather and Lance’s father as a young man on family farm.

History

Managing Director - Lance Russell

Early Years: 1956-1977

Lance ran the family market garden on his own in 1956 with ten grown up staff at age 17 years, and made a record farm profit that year. Soon after he was joined by his other two brothers and they turned the 80 acre market garden into the largest in New Zealand. On the way they won an export award, achieving the fastest growth by any award winner previously, were market leaders way ahead of their time supplying and growing with the rapid growth of the supermarkets in the upper North Island in vegetable prepacks and other produce direct and fresh to the outlet.

It was in their very early years Lance first learnt the advantages of contracting and giving more responsibility to his working team. 

Lance at 17 years old

Unfortunately it was a very difficult business to manage, very capital and labour intensive and clearly growth was too rapid. The brothers were also pioneering marketing methods which later became common place. Add to this a couple of untimely seasonal events and they were short of capital. Lance financially lost everything including his home. Lance felt that with the years of self employment, although he had a lot of employment offers reasoned he would make a bad employee. Having remarried to Barbara that year they decided to start a new business of their own aided by a small capital loan from friends.

The Kowhai retail paint shop

Lance and Barbara and the Kowhai Era

1977 - 2013

From scratch they started a Home Improvement Business in 1977. They worked extremely hard and built up a national home improvement business that became very well known in the marketplace specializing in a range of home improvement services.

The Kowhai Guys 2010

During this era they started manufacturing their own product including floor coating systems, paint for their retail shop at the premises, roof paint for the licensees and texture ceiling spray. The business was sold in 2013, but retained the texture business which had an element of asbestos in the texture material formula.

Why the name KTeam?

Their farming venture sold their produce direct to the supermarkets and was branded King Kole. The fleet of 15 trucks delivering to the supermarkets had a big K on the canopies.

The "K" in King Kole. Loading produce for export 1975

Hence going back to history and nostalgia by naming the new company KTeam. Also "K" was a prominent feature in the Kowhai logo.

The KTeam 2014-

Lance Russell - Managing Director

Some people don't know when to retire and Lance at 79 is one of them. He enjoys working with people and meeting challenges. His wife has earned a well-deserved retirement, but does volunteer work as well as her golf. So he formed the KTeam Ltd and started to rejuvenate the business of texture removals which are continuing to lessen each year and introduced cladding removals, lino removals and cleaning up methamphetamine houses. Lance has also re-introduced gutterguard which he had two American systems which were both easy to install but also effective.

Tony Matley - General Manager and share holder

The plan is for Tony to take over the company fully when Lance eventually retires. Tony actually worked for Lance for about six years at which time he purchased the flooring business about 16 years ago, which was a part of "Kowhai" at the time. Lance was exceedingly pleased when Tony accepted the offer of joining KTeam and eventually taking over. Tony brings a lot of experience to the KTeam and enjoys all the new challenges. Lance & Tony combine their different skills to steer the new company successfully  forward in the immediate future but in the longer term Lance is fully at ease for the company being in good hands when he eventually calls it a day.

Annmarie Bourne - Administrator

Annmarie who only joined very recently and her expertise is in the running of the accounts and administration. Annmarie having more emphasis on the financial and the books.

The licensed contracting Team

This is an absolutely key element to the ultimate success of the KTeam. These are the real workers. Lance throughout his life has kept staff a long time and recognizes how absolutely important they are to the ultimate success of any company.

Joe, Victor, Kevin & Simon all over 15 years with Lance

When he was 17 years old, he first learnt the advantages of contracting and has contributed much to the success of his previous businesses. It has been a key ingredient. That is why of the team of licensed asbestos removing contractors, four have been with Lance for over 15 years and most of the rest over 5 years, They work on a fixed share of the sale price. They are virtually like owner operators and not only want to get the job through quickly, but also need to make sure customers are happy with their work so that there is no reason for payment to be held up. This way they can get better staff and do not have to go through a continual retraining process.

Message from Lance - "I feel privileged and lucky to have such a good team and our joint aim is to provide a top service which will result in a business built up by referrals as we have successfully achieved in the past. We have already introduced some innovative systems, both safe and faster to make jobs go better for our customers."