Major influence: Colin Peters believes the future for Australian industry is in innovation, not traditional automotive manufacturing, despite working in the parts sector for 40 years.

FORMER Castalloy managing director Colin Peters and former Automotive Holdings Group (AHG) chairman Vern Wheatley were recognised for their services to the automotive industry in the 2016 Australia Day Honours this week.

Mr Peters was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), primarily for his years of service to the automotive manufacturing sector and professional industry associations, while Mr Wheatley received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the automotive industry.

Still heavily involved in the South Australian business community as honorary chairman of the state’s Industry Leaders Fund, Mr Peters was entrenched in the automotive industry for some four decades, joining Castalloy in 1962 and rising to chief operating officer – a position he held for 20 years – and later managing director from 1999 to 2002, when he retired.

During that period, Castalloy grew from a small aluminium parts supplier in Adelaide to a major international operation with plants in Adelaide, Albury and Auckland turning over $600 million a year with some 2500 employees, although the company (which had become part of the Ion Group) hit upon financial difficulties a couple of years after Mr Peters’ retirement.

While at Castalloy, Mr Peters was national vice-president of the Federation of Automotive Products Manufacturers (FAPM) for five years and a board member for some two decades.

He was also the FAPM’s South Australian state president for many years, chairman of the South Australian Automotive Industry Advisory Board, a member of Austrade’s Automotive Export Advisory Board and chairman of the Group Training Scheme Board of the Engineering Employers Association of South Australia (EEASA).

In retirement, Mr Peters served as EEASA president from 2004 to 2009, having spent 15 years on the committee of management. He has also been a director of Workcover Corporation of SA, a board member of Business SA and sat on the board of the Ai Group for many years.

Former AHG chairman Vern Wheatley.

His involvement in the Industry Leaders Fund, which offers grants of up to $50,000 to help those with industry leadership potential, came when the entity was developed following the transfer of the apprentice training activities of the EEASA training scheme to the Ai Group in 2009.

He was elected inaugural chairman, a position he still holds, and remains passionate about providing opportunities for people in South Australia, which along with Victoria has been hit hardest by the forthcoming closure of the three local car manufacturers – Ford, which closes in October, and Toyota and Holden next year.

Mr Peters is not, however, clinging on to the hope of Holden’s Adelaide plant being used by another car manufacturing operation.

“The future of SA won’t be found in a car factory in Elizabeth,” he told the Adelaide Advertiser this week. “The future is in innovation, and I’m very gung-ho about it – it’s fascinating and exciting to be a part of.

“Anyone with any sense of economic reasoning would know that Australia is no longer a country where cars can be made.

“Not for one second do I blame the federal government for the loss of the industry. You can’t just keep forking out money.”

Mr Wheatley, meanwhile, has been a driving force behind WA-based AHG, which has become Australia’s large motor vehicle retailer and is now a diversified automotive retailing and logistics group with operations in every state and in New Zealand. Group revenue last financial year was $5.2 billion.

He was involved in AHG from the beginning, part of the company his father Syd founded in 1952 and providing more than 50 years of leadership to the group – including serving as executive chairman from 1968 to 1994 – up until his retirement in 2004.

Mr Wheatley is a life member of the Motor Trade Association of Western Australia and a foundation member of the WA Motor Industry Foundation.

He has also supported a broad range of community organisations over many years, serving as president of local Apex and Rotary clubs in the Perth region, for example, and in 2013 founded the Wheatley Family Foundation, which assists a wide variety of causes.

By Terry Martin