Interview: Hamilton Rope Access Firm Connect Access Takes Building Maintenance Off the Scaffold

Managing Director Brendon Kinnaird says rope access is still underused across the region, and building owners are often surprised by what it can reach

Hamilton: A team from Connect Access has spent more than two years working on the exterior of the Centre Place building on Ward Street, the future Pullman Hotel, painting it, carrying out demolition, installing anchor rail systems and lowering heavy sections of pipe down the face of the building without a crane or scaffold in sight. Most people walking below never notice.

That invisibility is the point. Connect Access uses rope access, or industrial abseiling, to reach and maintain the exterior of commercial buildings, industrial sites and infrastructure across Hamilton, Auckland and the wider Waikato.

From danger money to a career at height

Managing Director Brendon Kinnaird got into the trade almost by accident. He started noticing industrial abseilers working on buildings around the city and assumed the job paid danger money. It didn't. "I found out that there's not actually any danger money. It's because it's not actually a dangerous job," he says. The realisation didn't put him off. He talked his way into a role at Hamilton firm New Zealand Industrial Abseilers with no qualifications and only recreational abseiling experience, and was trained on the job straight out of school.

A career followed that took him well beyond Hamilton. He worked through New Zealand, across to Australia, and onto oil rigs, offshore platforms and fly-in fly-out iron ore mining in the Western Australian desert, supervising welders and confined space work. The safety culture he absorbed in oil and gas came home with him when he returned in 2017.

Built from a laptop at the end of the bed

Connect Access started at the beginning of COVID, when the thin Hamilton job market for someone with Kinnaird's project management experience pushed the decision into focus. "I had no other options really," he says. He began with a laptop at a desk at the end of his bed, cold-calling building managers and trying to build trust with people who already had contractors they trusted.

To stay afloat, he took on residential roof painting. "That would provide me with enough cash flow to continue to call," he says. For a couple of years it went that way, a month of roof painting, then an abseil job, until the abseil work became weekly. It took two years to hire his first full-time employee, a team leader who is still with him.

Beyond building washing

The company's core work now includes building washing, joint seal replacements, leak detection and repairs, high-rise painting, birdproofing and general height maintenance. Kinnaird argues rope access remains underused across the region. "A lot of people just don't know to use rope access as an option," he says. "Save yourself the hassle of having a massive scaffold up on the side of your building. There's another way. And we're not just limited to building washing. That's just the start of what we can do."

Safety as the standard

Connect Access works to IRATA certification, the internationally recognised gold standard for rope access, and is IMPAC Prequal and Tōtika assessed, with approved installer status for Kattsafe and Rothoblaas height safety systems. The qualification runs across three levels, with a Level 3 supervisor able to run a full team over the side of a building without needing to be on the ropes.

Kinnaird credits the oil and gas sector for the company's safety culture and runs an open-door approach on site: report issues, don't hide them. His advice to anyone choosing a provider is to ask for site-specific paperwork up front. "Safety analysis, risk assessments, rescue plans. If they can provide that quickly, then it means it's already in place."

The report comes before the invoice

One feature tends to surprise new clients: a full photographic completion report supplied after every job, before the invoice. "Because we're abseiling, no one can see what we're doing," Kinnaird says. The report shows the preparation, process and outcome in sequence, and gives property managers running 50 or 60 buildings a record they can't easily capture themselves.

His aim is for Connect Access to become a full-service building maintenance company covering every exterior trade, top to bottom, established in both Hamilton and Auckland. "They would be surprised at what they think is difficult to be done on a rope," he says. "The capabilities of our teams are much higher than what people expect."

Read the full interview with Brendon Kinnaird on the Connect Access website.

About Connect Access

Connect Access is a Hamilton-based rope access and building maintenance company providing exterior building services across Hamilton, Auckland, the Waikato, Tauranga and Rotorua. The company is IRATA certified, IMPAC Prequal and Tōtika assessed, and an approved installer for Kattsafe and Rothoblaas height safety systems. For more information, visit connectaccess.co.nz or call 027 457 1077.

Contact: Connect Access, 027 457 1077
brendon@connectaccess.co.nz