How Arana Kuru built A&R Logging on trust, relationships and quality gear that keeps cutting wood.
At 21 years old, Arana Kuru lay unconscious in the mud after being struck in the head by a swinging log in a Gisborne forest.
“Dad picked me up out of the mud and said, ‘Oh God, don’t take my son!’ And then apparently I just started breathing again. It was a bit of a miracle. The helicopter came and took me to hospital. I had blown eardrums and a fractured skull.”
That moment would ultimately send him halfway around the world to Iceland, where he would meet his wife, Runa, learn a new language, fillet fish in a factory, work for a property developer, and eventually find his way back to forestry.
Today, the founder of A&R Logging oversees 28 staff and four crews operating across the East Coast. He’s known for his focus on safety and using high-tech equipment from brands such as Woodsman Pro.
But for Kuru, the business has never just been about machinery.
“It’s the work culture and the people that we have,” he says. “Three crew members are still with me from when I first bought the business in late 2013. They’re all now foremen and have gone from renting to having mortgages. I’m proud to be able to provide a stable base for people, and be attractive enough that forest owners want to engage with us.”
Growing up around machinery
Born in Palmerston North, Kuru spent much of his childhood moving around the country as his father followed heavy machinery and transport work.
The family eventually settled in Gisborne in the early 1990s as the region’s forestry industry began to take off. Kuru left school in seventh form and went straight into the bush with his dad to work as a breaker out on a hauler crew.
“There was no mechanisation, it was just sweat and chainsaws,” he says. “It was exciting. You’d come home tired after a good day’s work and there was a real good crew culture. There was always someone shouting beers on a Friday night, and as an 18-year-old it was awesome.”
Unexpected detours
After his accident in 1998, Kuru decided he needed to experience something beyond forestry. “I thought ‘I’m young, I don’t want to die here.’ We had a friend who lived in Iceland so I decided to go on a mission.
“For the first two or three years I worked in a fish factory with all these old fellas who didn’t speak any English. They just told me to do stuff using their hands, and when you hear the language all the time you just figure it out. Then I worked for a property developer doing all his ground work with diggers and trucks. He would buy a whole cul-de-sac and build 10 houses at once.
“Iceland is mint. Obviously it’s cold but the weirdest part is it’s just dark for three months, there’s no sun at all. At that time the population was about 320,000. What surprised me was how developed they were – everyone had flash cars and was living the high life.”
Nine years, one wife and two children later, the Global Financial Crisis hit in 2009, development work dried up, and the family returned to New Zealand.
Kuru then completed a New Zealand Diploma in Civil Engineering, welcomed a third child, and began working in Auckland. He quickly realised he didn’t want to raise a family there, so returned home to Gizzy.
Building A&R Logging
After securing finance to buy an existing logging crew, he got straight to work. But the transition back into forestry came with challenges.
“The extent of change was massive,” Kuru says. “All of the health and safety had come in, there was a lot more mechanisation, and the crew culture had changed. Now you have two people in a ute – there’s not eight of us in a Hiace van taking the piss out of each other like when I was young. The logging itself I wasn’t afraid of. I was confident I knew what I was doing. The challenge was the dynamics and getting guys to work together every day and how they gel.”
Over time, A&R Logging steadily expanded. Today the business operates three hauler crews and one ground-based crew, servicing contracts for Forest Management New Zealand and Aratu Forests.
Along the way, Woodsman Pro has become an increasingly important part of the company’s operation.
“Once my operators tried the Woodsman Pro 850 harvesting head, they liked it way better. It felt freer, not as heavy and bulky, and really quick. It’s lighter, nimbler and processes the stem much quicker.”
The company now owns three Woodsman Pro 850 harvesting heads, along with multiple guarding packages and 1730 grapples from Ensign, the Rotorua-based manufacturer behind Woodsman Pro.
“Their grapples are light, strong, and go the distance, and for the right price too. Their guarding packages are quite innovative in their design. They fine-tune it to what the customer wants so I can say ‘I want a drawer under there, and I want a grease gun pump over there, and a coffee holder over there’. It’s badass.”
Relationships matter
For Kuru, reliable support and fast service are just as important as the machinery itself.
“There’s no wood cut without that Woodsman Pro head. It’s paramount that thing doesn’t break down because that’s what’s paying for everything. Without wood being cut, you can’t pay your bills. And when the wood’s coming in fast, it’s got to be processed quickly. And that’s what these machines are best at.”
Kuru says Woodsman Pro’s investment in a Gisborne branch made a significant difference.
“That was the icing on the cake really because they’re the only ones that have local support for their product,” he says. “You can’t put a price on it. Having a local technician in town and only a phone call away prevents any bottlenecks down the line. They’re pretty technical bits of kit. You can’t just jump out with a screwdriver and get it going again. So having that support, and parts on the shelf, is what keeps us going back for more.”
Those relationships have become personal too.
One of Woodsman Pro’s lead designers, Bjarni, is from Iceland. “It’s just a weird connection,” Kuru says. “He’s designing the attachments that I’m using, and we catch up every year and speak Icelandic.
“When we meet up, he always asks me for feedback on the Woodsman Pro head and wants to know when I’m buying another one,” he laughs.
Full circle
Kuru says success is being able to continue managing what he’s built.
“It’s about building those relationships, making sure you pay your bills, and getting a good name around town. This industry provides a good lifestyle. It’s financially rewarding and there’s a real sense of accomplishment.
“I would like to try some other ventures, and I’d love to go back to Iceland. I love Europe. Our family are all into snowboarding and mountain bikes. We’re pretty much adventurers.”
Despite everything that’s happened over the past three decades – the accident, Iceland, engineering studies, and building four logging crews – part of him still feels like the young guy riding to work in a Hiace van with his first forestry crew.
“Honestly, in my head it doesn’t even feel that long ago,” he says. “I just turned 50 and I still feel like I’m 25.”