TN Gibbs

"TN Gibbs exemplified the Protestant work ethic. One of his favourite aphorisms was ‘Pray as if everything depended on God and act, or work, as if everything depended on you’."

"The reality is, however, that TN Gibbs had sent mixed messages over a longer period. Alan didn’t receive any financial assets from his father, but he had gained something more valuable. As he puts it, ‘I gained the benefit of seeing Dad being successful in business. He didn’t talk about it much, but watching him gave me the feel for it, it gave me the confidence that business wasn’t a great mystery, but rather something I could master.’"

"TN Gibbs had taken a piece of wisdom from the biblical King Solomon as one of his guiding principles in business: ‘Take shares in several ventures; you never know what will go wrong in this world.’[12](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477268-974936905-12) Alan Gibbs took it to heart. While the car project ground its way through the system and while he set about expanding Holmes Manufacturing’s business, he cast about for other entrepreneurial schemes. He spied an opportunity to import advanced breeding stock for chicken meat. Stiff controls over importing birds were in place and the best birds in New Zealand were bred to produce eggs rather than meat."