Success built on a good idea and the will to succeed

FUTURE PROOF:Martin McVicar, the founder of a Monaghan forklift company, started out armed with little more than steely determination and now runs a global company that had €90m turnover last year

MONAGHAN-BASED forklift maker Combilift was never going to fail.

The firm’s co-founder and now managing director Martin McVicar was so determined to study physics for his Leaving Cert – despite being told he couldn’t do so because he hadn’t studied science previously – that he presented his teacher with a proposition: if he was the best in the class by Christmas he would be allowed to continue with the subject at honours level. It was McVicar who won out.

His steely determination reared its head again just after he left school and completed a six-month summer job on the factory floor of Monaghan-based Moffett Engineering, which made forklifts. He was determined to get into the design side of the business and after being given a project to do by one of the firm’s engineers on a Friday he came back in on Monday with a solution laid out. This he did using his T-square at home and despite having no degree or qualifications as an engineer. Before he turned 20 he was the company’s chief engineer.

“It worked out well for me. You have to try to grab any opportunities you can take,” says McVicar, who just turned 40 this year.

Such determination has proved useful given that, along with Robert Moffett, one of the owners of Moffett Engineering, he set up a business making products which are generally mass produced by huge companies such as Nissan and Toyota. Both men had kept in touch after Moffett Engineering was sold to public company Powerscreen in 1997. “I always wanted to do something on my own and I didn’t want to become just a number in a public company,” says McVicar.

He had a winning formula: a niche product – forklifts which could handle awkward loads such as long pieces of timber, steel or aluminium and move backwards and forwards, to the left or right. Since it combined a number of functions it was christened the Combilift.

“We set up in March 1998 and by the end of the year we had produced 18 Combilifts. Of the 18, we exported 17 abroad,” recalls McVicar.

Combilift now produces 50 products a week and its global reach – exporting to up to 60 countries – is the key to its success. “Even if one or two markets goes down it doesn’t affect us,” he says.

The boom in Ireland passed the firm by as a result which continued to grow at a steady pace. The recession here has also not affected Combilift, though doubts about the Irish economy have worried some of their customers abroad. “When Ireland was taking the bailout money we had some customers who were concerned about whether they were going to get their product,” says McVicar.

But the recent global recession did hurt the company which was forced to shed 34 jobs in 2009. “We would have been set up 11 years at that stage and some people had been with us since the start,” he says.

Not long afterwards, however, the company did bounce back and was able to rehire 15 of the workers it let go.

It now employs 250 people both in Monaghan and in the countries it sells to and had a turnover of €90 million last year. Combilift’s growth success is helped by its focus on research and development which sees it develop two new product lines each year. The Combilift as a compact piece of equipment has also a strong selling point as a space-saving device. “People are more conscious now of operational costs . . . bigger premises require more electricity, more heating and drive up costs,” says McVicar.

He wants to double Combilift’s size in turnover and employees in five years. Despite selling to virtually every corner of the world he says they are looking at other Asian markets, such as Singapore and the Philippines, to tap into. “We are still not doing business everywhere,” he says with a tone that his physics teacher would no doubt recognise.

He insists the business will remain his focus and he won’t be selling up “for love nor money”. “It becomes part of you. For me it’s not about the money,” he says.

And his advice for anyone thinking of starting up a business? “Listen to advice but don’t follow all of it. Ignore the ‘No’s and go for it. But any doubt is a mistake. You need to be able to stand up to any tidal wave that comes your way.”