1. How did you begin your career in the building and construction industry?

I have been very passionate about building and construction ever since I was a little girl. I use to read the real estate section in the newspaper every weekend and knew the median house price for nearly every suburb of Melbourne back in the 1980’s.

I studied Town and Regional Planning in the Architecture and Building Faculty at Melbourne University. I loved my course and did not realize at the time how many different doors and opportunities my degree could take me.

I secured my first career job with Kinhill Engineers which involved relocating to Sydney in 1989. At the time Sydney skyline was a blaze of building cranes and major urban renewal waterfront activity with the development of Darling Harbour. It was an incredible buzz as a young graduate to be part of this development boom. My career in Sydney included working as a Specialist Town Planner at Sydney Council, managing the redevelopment of East Circular Quay. My other career highlights included my appointment as the first female Development Project Manager at Multiplex where I spent a number of years based on site whilst we redeveloped the

“Termites are a massive issue in North Queensland, so we need termite proof building materials, and that is exactly what Weathertex provides us with”

James and Sarah MortDirectors & Co-Company Founders

historic Finger Wharf building at Woolloomooloo. At the time the most expensive waterfront restoration project valued at over $300 million.

On completing this project I decided to establish my own boutique property development consulting business that eventually saw me relocate to Far North Queensland, where I met my husband and business partner, James Mort (a builder and property developer from Melbourne).

2. Can you tell us about your company MiHaven ?

MiHaven is a construction company specialising in building cyclone rated high quality housing appropriate for tropical environments and remote locations. The company also operates a construction training school that focuses on supporting disadvantaged indigenous people and communities providing the opportunity to create construction workforce capacity. This side of the company is very much focuses on being a social enterprise.

We established the business in 2011 following the aftermath of Cyclone Yasi that decimated the small town of Mission Beach, where we lived. We saw the destruction and heartache the cyclone left on the community. We were simply left with two options; pack up and leave beautiful North Queensland because the construction industry was just collapsing as no one was building, or embrace the opportunity. Due to the enormity of the destruction, there was a lot of uptake in the area, so we made the decision to assist our community and stay in North Queensland. We worked on designing a better system of building cyclone rated housing appropriate for the tropics. We had been in the area for about 10 years and as a developer, we had been developing a new building system that became the MiHaven brand. The idea

was to build more effective and efficient homes in extreme and remote locations. It is extremely important, especially in areas that are prone to extreme weather conditions like the tropics. After the cyclone, the federal government provided funding to help rebuild the community. This gave birth to MiHaven’s social enterprise, building community buildings and supporting unemployed people to train and secure employment in the construction industry.

On the launch of our new business, we won the Tropical Far North Queensland award for innovation. This gave us a great break with extensive media coverage which then linked us to the federal government to support the rebuilding of community facilities in our local region.

We are now a Registered Training Organization, as well as a construction company.

Today, we train a lot of disadvantaged and unemployed people, mostly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We use the building system to teach them how to build. We also do a lot of support work with them as well, which we call the MiLife Change program, teaching life skills to assist in dealing with various workplace situations.

Cairns has been a great town to start and grow our business from. We have expanded operations into many remote Cape York Indigenous communities.

We have plans to expand into Darwin, Western Australian and Northern NSW.

3.Can you tell us about an award you have won? Briefly explain.

The biggest award we won was in 2011, which was a ‘Business Innovation Award. The award was sponsored by the Cairns Regional Council and it was great for promoting small businesses like ours. The reason we won the award was because our business was helping to stimulate our local economy.

4. Can you tell us more about the MiHaven Training School?

MiHaven became a Registered Training Organization in May 2014. We have the resources to train people in a basic level Certificate 1 in construction through to a career with apprenticeships in Construction and Plumbing industry. We also provide training in retail, which builds skills in self-confidence and communication. We are an industry based training school and blend 50% of training in the class room and 50% on real live construction sites, which gives the students the best exposure to the industry. Our programs are intensive with full time training 5 days a week for up to 16 weeks including work experience. During the program we identify each students desires and career aspirations and try to match this with our extensive industry network to secure employment. An essential component of the program is our mentoring support where we engage quality, experienced mentors who provide individual support to each one of the students.

5. Can you tell us about a recent project that was built through MiHaven Training School using Weathertex?

We have recently finished 6 houses in the indigenous community of Napranum on time and on budget, of which were cladded with Weathertex. We took on 15 young men in the community who were unemployed, and we trained them. A number of these men are now engaged in our construction apprenticeship. On completion of the building process, the former QLD Premier, Campbell Newman visited the community and stated that the MiHaven homes were outstanding in terms of quality and design and he would be more than happy to live in a MiHaven home. This was a wonderful endorsement after many challenging months of building and training.

6. Why is MiHaven Training School so important to the community?

Our training school is a real working model of providing economic sustainable change. MiHaven Training School trains and employs local people, and buildings are built on site, which means the money stays in our community and the community benefits from the holistic collaborative social impact model.

7. How did you find out about Weathertex?

My husband has been in the industry for a very long time, he has great knowledge of the various products, and he has been to many trade shows around Australia. We first used Weathertex 10 years ago, on a renovation we did in Bingal Bay (Mission Beach), and we were extremely impressed with the product.

8. How many years have you been using Weathertex for?

We have been using Weathertex since we started our business in 2011.

9. What do you think are the main features and benefits of Weathertex?

Weathertex products are environmentally friendly and help us to achieve a good energy rating. The product continually provides the look that we are after. We have realized that Weathertex is a long

lasting product. Termites are a massive issue in North Queensland, so we need termite proof building materials, and that is exactly what Weathertex provides us with. You only need to paint Weathertex once and it looks fantastic for many years to come, and you can paint it any colour you want. It is

incredibly easy to use, which is a huge thing for us, as we take on a lot of apprentices, a lot of them are just learning, so it’s a great product for us to train them with. And they absolutely love working with it!

Weathertex works so well up here in the tropics, and provides the style of housing we are after. Our design is very modern, and we find it suits so well.

10. How does Weathertex products compare to other cladding materials available on the Australian market?

I can only compare Weathertex to another product we have used, and it was sold to us because it was marginally cheaper. It looked like the normal weatherboards you can purchase, however the product we got was extremely brittle, and it just crumbled at the slightest bump or hit. Weathertex is so sturdy and strong, we don’t need to worry about accidently bumping it, as there wont be a mark left.

11.Would you recommend Weathertex to a friend or a colleague?

Of course.