Darryl Tatom - A good deal

He’s been a trader from a young age, not the big-time stock exchange kind, more of the down-home big-hearted Darryl kind - a man with a huge heart for his community, always keen to share his great love of the outdoors.

Entrepreneurial blood and an enterprising spirit run thick in Darryl Tatom’s veins – his parents both well-known as traders in Christchurch’s New Brighton, where they opened and operated Mollett Street Market.

Darryl’s first job at 16 was on the road around the South Island selling for his parent’s leather belts and bags business. By the mid-1980s when he moved to Queenstown, Darryl’s Tongan mother, by then remarried as Henrietta Rutherford-Jones, had become renowned locally for her hand-crafted soaps store.

For the past 30 years Darryl’s been the face of popular downtown outdoors store Small Planet – a mix of near new and new ski, snowboard, climbing and other outdoor gear and equipment.

He’s been in the repurposing trade for 45 years, long before it became a thing, Darryl and a mate starting out in Dunedin, with Recycled Recreation, which became R & R Sports.

It all started after Darryl with his keen eye for spotting and trading good quality items, moved to Dunedin in the early 1980s from Sumner, where he grew up, to run the beachside saltwater pool – Heaven of sorts for a keen, young surfer. Here he began buying and selling boards on the beach, running a little sideline store.

“We took over an old leaky, second-hand store adding floorboards over the floor and set up tables where we sold rugby and soccer boots,” Darryl says. “Parents brought in their old pairs and handed over $10 to choose another pair. That’s how R & R Sports got started.”

By the mid-80s he and a mate door-knocked around homes with cash asking to buy any second-hand sports gear. “We had a map and pinned different areas. Slowly we filled the shop with used sports, fishing and dive gear, rugby and soccer boots.”

They then bought two old Holden utes and hit the road all over New Zealand doing the same thing with businesses. “Once I bought 10,000 old pocketknives – one in every 10 had rusty blades, so I cleaned them up and spent five years on-selling them for $2 each.” They’d score old stock from distributors and manufacturers.

As the business grew it expanded from eight to 12 stores around NZ – mates joining as partners. They’d fly to Australia and fill containers of used surfboards and wetsuits, shipping them home to sell.

Darryl’s was an idyllic beachside upbringing surfing and surf lifesaving in summer, skiing in winter. His parents also had a candle making factory and they had a pottery kiln at home.

He grew up helping in the businesses and at the local craft markets, all the while honing his skills for a successful life in business. “It was pretty special being on those market stalls as a kid. It was never competitive, even now. I do it all from the heart.

 “That first job selling leather on the road taught me to be self-reliant, communicate well with people and deliver on my word. That’s what I’ve taught my three kids – what you say is what you do,” he says.

As youngsters they’d ski from a young age at Canterbury’s Craigieburn Skifield. “In winter our Surf Club captain, Fraser Sloane would be waiting at the school gate for us on a Friday night and we’d all pile into his big old car and head to Craigieburn where he was custodian,” Darryl says. “We helped get the generator going for the rope tows on Friday night. In summer he’d take us all around NZ for Surf Club Championships.”

At 18, already an experienced young salesman, Darryl took a year off to work on a prawn boat off Southport on the Gold Coast. “We’d head out at 4pm and work all night.” The smell of those cooked prawns initially turned his stomach as the boat rocked and rolled.

By the 1990s he’d sold his shares in R & R and moved to Queenstown where his mum was living.

Here he launched The Snowboard Shop in winter with partners, and Alpine Cycles during summer.

He soon met wife of 30 years, Maree, who worked at Mountain Works next door. “I gave Revell Buckham an old split cane trout rod and he gave us Thurlby Domain for the day for our wedding in the late 1980s.” Graeme Glass played the pipes, and they wore Darryl’s Skein family tartan.

Darryl sold his other business interests and together he and Maree launched Small Planet in Athol Street, buying 20 acres at Gibbston Valley where they lived in a caravan for the first year with their first two kids. “We built the first solar-powered house here. There was many a bleak winter’s day when the kids would be waiting after school for me to get home to start the generator up,” he grins.

Later it was Dad who’d take them, and a big crew of other Wakatipu High School students, up ski touring at dawn before school and drop them back down, loaning them all the gear from Small Planet.

Darryl’s always had a heart for the kids. “My most fulfilling memories are those of young kids who’ve either worked for me, or I’ve helped, going on to become professional guides. If they did an outdoors course, I’d pay half while they worked for me.”

Work-life balance is not a new concept for Darryl either, despite being open seven days, although longstanding staffers Yan Lassuer and Russ Wilson have now bought into the business allowing him to kick back a little.

Family holidays were spent fishing, diving and camping, dropped by boat to remote parts of Fiordland, and off Stewart Island.

Kaikoura has always been his “soul place”, where he and his surfing mates learned to cook with jaffle irons over the fire.

“To this day I go in my van surfing and camp out at the likes of Murderers Bay or Karitane in Otago, or Colac Bay or Riverton, or mountain biking with Maree. I’ve been doing it all my life. It’s my balance.”