Alan Irvine - A Biography

Alan brings commitment and enthusiasm in helping business develop websites to meet the expectations and demands of the present day business world. He has a strong belief in community being himself involved for many years in several organisations amongst them, the Wellington South Rotary Club.

With a long history of innovation and achievement Alan has been naturally drawn to the Zeald website approach. After years in the funeral service industry followed by food retail he has always enjoyed meeting people and understanding their needs. His business life has led to a wealth of experience in business systems and human behaviour, which fits with the modern phenomenon of the internet because, as Alan says, “its still people using the internet and we’ve not changed because of it”.

Educated at Auckland Grammar School he followed when his parents moved to Wellington. His first exposure to office technology was as a mechanic where he enjoyed repairing and maintaining typewriters and accounting machines in Wellington & the Hutt Valley for Beechey & Underwood. During this time he was playing club rugby at Loose head prop for the Wellington Football Club and represented Wellington in the under 19 grade.

Alan responded to his father’s business needs and joined the family funeral business after spending a year at the San Francisco College of Mortuary Science where he graduated with a diploma in embalming, a rare qualification in NZ at that time. After returning home to foster the new skills and principles he had learnt, Alan became a founding member of a small but dedicated group within the industry who led the way to what we see now as today’s modern funeral service. He formed The Wilson Funeral Home Ltd and was instrumental in developing the training programmes for funeral directors and embalmers.

Having achieved many of his goals Alan then decided to sell his business and became involved in the food industry. He built “Relish” a specialty food store with a deli/takeaway bar located in the original Quay Point Mall on Lambton Quay. Those were very busy days and he survived for four years, by which time he had also started a manufacturing business and launched a frozen meal range to meet the growing microwave market.

His manufacturing business expanded into a cook/chill processing plant which supplied a wide variety of extended shelf life products to the hospitality industry nationwide and even a specialty product to Japan. Alan took his company into ISO9002 which opened up the “systems” approach to Quality Control and management.

Alan believes in giving back to the community and has been involved in YMCA as a gym instructor, Brooklyn Scout Group as scout leader and the ten years he spend involved with Wellington South Rotary Club helped to develop his business networking and leadership skills.

A fourth generation kiwi, Alan is married to Kathy and they share seven children and several grandchildren between them.

Growing up in Bucklands Beach, Alan learned to sail in P class on the Tamaki estuary. Sailing has been a lifelong passion which has led to him becoming a racing enthusiast on Wellington harbour as a member of Evans Bay Yacht Club. He has also been observed island hopping in the Adriatic with a charter yacht and his lovely wife Kathy at his side.

Alan brings the same commitment and enthusiasm he had for his own business in helping business develop sound websites that meet the challenges, expectations and demands of the present day business world.

Contact Me:

 

P. 021 447 653
E.