Clive Geddes - Destined to lead

Destined to be a leader, he was appointed ‘Sergeant Major’ for his Greymouth High School Cadets in 1959 “in charge of training the kids”. By 2001, albeit on a somewhat grander scale, former Queenstown Lakes Mayor Clive Geddes was pretty much doing the same.

Serving as mayor for nine years he led the district through some of its most heady growth, the council of the day constantly facing the battles of the bulge keeping pace with new burgeoning infrastructure needs and unprecedented growth.

This all from the man, who as a pony-tailed Lincoln College agricultural science graduate got a stern warning from his Department of Agriculture boss in the 1970s for “driving around in a government car with a surfboard on top”.

Born in Waimate in 1945, Clive grew up in different times, second youngest of five kids, including twins, his was an idyllic small town Kiwi upbringing.

“My dad was a Railways worker and about every three years we moved towns.” Clive’s longest stint was his five years at high school in Greymouth, where he’d returned to work for the Ministry fresh from uni.

“For some reason I was appointed School Sergeant Major. World War II hadn’t long ended, and we’d be down on Karoro Beach in Greymouth at 14 in our cadet uniforms firing real ammunition out to sea with .303 rifles, Bren guns and a three-inch mortar.”

The nearest threat ever posed was a potential tidal wave (tsunami). “I was released from school to stand on the escarpment by Greymouth Hospital watching for a tidal wave to arrive from South America,” Clive says. It never did.

“Dad would pile us all into the car at weekends to go camping and fishing.” Train tickets were discounted so in school holidays they’d be bundled off to aunts and uncles’ farms which piqued Clive’s interest in studying agriculture.

The Lincoln social life consisted of Saturday night dances in Christchurch, but few students had a car, and Clive came to serious grief once on his motorbike.

With only two female students at Lincoln in a role of 500 they frequented the Christchurch Hospital Nurse’s Home.

Bonded to the Department of Agriculture on a Bursary Clive was nominated for a Greymouth posting - after a brief stint in Nelson - learning to surf. “I got a very serious letter from my controller advising me against carrying a surfboard on a government-marked car,” he grins.

After meeting former wife Jocie, who had her own bespoke leather clothing company, Jocies’s Gear, through a cousin, they headed off on a five-year OE, selling everything they owned. “We travelled Europe in a Volkswagen and tent through to Turkey and Lebanon.” One night in Northern Greece they heard bells approaching with hundreds of goats, sheep and their shepherds. “They were a pretty desperate looking bunch but after waving arms at each other to communicate Jocie was able to speak to one in German. He said they’d camped so close as they were worried someone might rob us!” Clive says.

After almost five years travel and work in London Clive and Jocie, who’d married in 1972, settled back in Queenstown in 1975 where Clive ran Jocie’s brother’s Reid Developments operations, including Walter Peak Tours and subdivisions at Kelvin Heights, Closeburn, Dalefield, Marina Heights and Bob’s Cove.

That whittled down to just Walter Peak Tours, US investors attracted to develop the tourist operation there in the late 1970s.

By the 80s, forming a joint NZ-US company, grand plans were launched for a five-star 380-room hotel condo resort there, Arnold Palmer commissioned to design the golf course. Canadian Pacific was all set to operate the resort, Clive working on the consents - granted in 1984, for four years. “Then the 1987 sharemarket crash happened, and everything turned to dust,” he says. Clive lost his job but was rehired by the receivers.

He was then hired by the two Chinese investors who bought Walter Peak Tours and owned property in Queenstown. They wanted him to help them buy more. That grew into an international role overseeing their property portfolio across four American cities for 12 years through the 1990s.

To this day Clive, still working 20 hours a week at 81, fulfills this role for one of them.

After a temporary year running the local Chamber of Commerce, he got many requests to stand for Mayor, cleaning up in 2001 with some 80% of the vote, a position he held until 2010, not seeking re-election.

“The council was planning to let 30-year contracts to service providers without putting them to market and there was a huge uproar from local contractors.”

With a completely new council they established ‘2020 Workshops’ about 2002 spending time in small communities consulting residents and designing community plans.

As one of the early founders of what was Destination Queenstown and the highly successful Queenstown Top 5 Marketing Group, Clive also headed the charge for the country’s first ever Jetboat Code of Practice. He ran the steering group that put together those first safety regulations after local jetboat driver Colin Robinson died tragically.

He had a proven track record to implement change and under his watch the council formed the Queenstown Housing Trust, the Trails Trust, Urban Design Panels, its first recycling strategy and developed reserve, traffic and parking plans. “The ambition was a reliable, free public transport network, initially buses, growing to trams, funded through a differential rate on accommodation providers,” he says. “That was 20 years ago and somehow it lost momentum. As a result, we have an ever-increasing population and the highest rate of car owners per head of population in NZ,” Clive says. “Our strategy in 2006 recognised that with no other alternative route in we were at a huge disadvantage.”

The lake was also “a simple solution”.

A keen Omarama Gliding Club member, Clive still chairs the Omarama Airfield Company and every Friday night he and wife Sally stay young with their two local grandkids, Lucas and Lillian.

“It was a privilege to lead this district. People come here with nothing to make something, and that generates fantastic energy.”