A changing of the guard… Leon’s moving on and Stuart is stepping up!

A changing of the guard... Leon's moving on and Stuart is stepping up!

Many of you may have heard Leon Daly is moving on from his GM role after 11.5 amazing years at Motovated. He will be heading down south to significant new challenges, managing high-value projects for NZAS (NZ Aluminium Smelter), while moving closer to friends, family and the hunting, fishing and tramping he loves. He’s leaving some big boots to fill. Luckily in Stuart Jackson we have just the man to fill them.

Stuart Jackson

Motovated's Leon Daly

Leon Daly

Leon started with Motovated after working on the tools, then designing for Nairn Harvesters. Like many engineers in NZ he had good analysis skills already, but no mentor and no way to be sure he was following best practice. And a grape harvester shakes the grapes off the vine and so is a fatigue test machine, just like a helicopter! If there are two products that need advanced engineering analysis, that would be them… He had followed Motovated’s newsletters, and stopped by and chatted with us at SOUTHMACH, but couldn’t get his boss to invest in our mentoring program. So when an engineering design position came available at Motovated, he jumped on it. He even passed up on an opportunity paying more to learn from the best. And learn he did. He learnt from us here at Motovated and clients as well. He is an avid knowledge hound, and took the opportunity of his commute from Southbridge to upskill for every role in he wanted here at Motovated, even before they were offered to him.

When Motovated was growing and I was stretched pillar to post, Leon was the guy that put his hand up and showed me he could be a better Analysis Manager for Motovated than I could. He expanded what I’d created, and expanded our processes to suit. Leon’s knowledge is a tide that rises all the boats, in true Motovated fashion. When I chose to step aside from GM and focus on strategy as CEO, Leon put his hand up again. He’s a better process engineer than I ever was, and has led systems development in Motovated so that they are clear, concise and engineer driven. Motovated is much better off for the 11.5 years he’s spent with us. He will be missed.

But as mentioned, Stu is here to fill his boots. Stu comes with his own skillset from running a Concrete Processing plant. It wasn’t filling his need to engineer however, so he went back to school and got his degree as well. Motovated was lucky enough to do a guest lecture in one of his courses at Ara and he was hooked. Stu emailed Motovated for a year at least before he won his way into Motovated. Because many of our team were seconded, Stu got personal tutelage from me, and thrived from the beginning. One of the things I really appreciate about Stu is his ability to work well with our clients, even when their projects face unforeseen challenges. Stu epitomises what it means to be a Motovated engineer, and we’re lucky to have him replacing Leon this month.

My thanks go to them both. They make Motovated a better place to be. As CEO & Marketing Manager, I enjoy directing and working for them both!

Greg Morehouse

CEO - Senior Engineering Analyst

Greg started his engineering career keeping the motorcycles and snowmobiles he raced running.  He expanded that knowledge for VW & Audi as a mechanic and later joined Boeing & Hercules Aerospace as an Engineering Analyst. With more than had 40+ years of real world design and analysis experience, Greg started Motovated in a mission to “Cost-effectively engineer our Client’s Vision, through advanced techniques, superior tools and boundless enthusiasm!"