Preparing to retire after 15 years as the Police Association’s finance manager, David, 71, has been reflecting on his long career. In hindsight, it’s clear he’s had great instincts for making good decisions at the right time.

The Hastings born and raised lad had originally gone to Massey University in Palmerston North to study food technology, but after one year he realised that the world of academia wasn’t for him. He preferred a more practical approach and, as it turned out, found his niche in accounting.

In 1968 he transferred to the Shell Oil head office in Wellington, where he rose to become the financial accounting manager.

That same year, he met his wife to be, Robyn, at a dance at the Sheraton Ballroom in the city. The couple married in 1972 and have two children. He stayed with Shell Oil till 1980, then moved to Fletcher Challenge, but kept continuity with the oil industry with responsibility for the Rockgas LPG side of the business.

That was until 1984, when he joined Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) as group finance and tax manager, but, developing his weather eye for financial forecasts, he says he was able to “bail out” before that company left New Zealand.

In 1986 he joined air compressor company Atlas Copco as a financial controller until that company also moved offshore to Australia, a destination he wasn’t too keen on.

The time was right to move again and this time it was to rising telco Telecom, where he became manager financial accounting.

Later, he survived two restructures, but not a third, but opportunity knocked again in the form of two other former Telecom staffers who asked David to join them in setting up Paradigm Technologies, specialising in international telephone pricing software.

David became the finance and commercial manager of the company, which had contracts with telephone companies in Indonesia, the Netherlands and the United States.

Paradigm Technologies eventually moved its HQ to Britain, but not before it had sold ground-breaking software that included Y2K millennial changeover protection.

David continued as the New Zealand manager for a while, but eventually found that working in two time zones was taking a toll on his health and family life, which has always been paramount for him and Robyn.

In the early 1980s, they began fostering children through the Open Home Foundation. Over 15 years, they fostered 34 children, most under the age of 12, for anything from a few weeks to a few months.

David was hired as the Police Association’s finance manager in 2003 by then-CEO Chris Pentecost, who told him he wanted a “mature person with plenty of experience”. David fitted the bill and, as he recalls, Chris was very impressed with his expertise in Excel spreadsheets.

Even so, he says, it took him several months to learn all about how the Association worked. “It’s not just a union. There’s this whole other commercial side to it.”

During his time at the Association, he has seen the organisation’s assets increase four-fold and turnover has risen by 200 per cent. Holiday Homes have increased from 43 to 66 and the number of members accessing discount mortgages has increased more than four-fold. Health Plan membership has risen by 23 per cent and claims are up by $21.2 million. Association and Welfare membership has increased by 30 per cent.

He’s proud of the fact that the Association weathered the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) in good heart, suffering no losses.

As for the world of accounting, it’s become far more regulated with a tangle of red tape and bureaucracy, he says. “It all got very complicated after the GFC, which led to a lot of reporting constraints. Company tax, especially, is very complicated these days.”

Outside of work, David has been a keen photographer since the age of 16 when he got his first camera, an East Germanmade Praktica. Nowadays he wrangles a Canon and photographs the natural world, people, weddings and special occasions.

It’s a creative outlet for a man whose professional life has been immersed in figures, spreadsheets and audits.

Now he’s finally ready to retire, he says, though he will miss the Association, which he says is a wonderfully “people-oriented” organisation.

He and Robyn and the family, including five grandchildren, will be spending a bit more time at their Horowhenua bach and he’s hoping there may be a contract job or two on the side – just to keep his hand in.

Knowing his knack for being in the right place at the right time, there probably will be.