You’ve got to think Ivan Turdeich’s brain seldom switches off.He seems to somehow fit creating forestry related video content, developing apps, live streaming rugby and designing clothing into his life, while at the same time having a family and a successful forestry career.
“I’ve found being creative helps my brain,” he says.
Ivan has been working for Ron Thomassen, owner of Thomassen Logging, for over 20 years. Running a crew in Lake Taupō Forest for about six years, he then became one of two operations managers.
While he is still operations manager, he says he is backed by plenty of support from his wife Amanda and the company, with good foremen and good staff in the crews and others including Ron and Thomassen Logging’s lead mechanic, all supporting him in his role.
“It’s a team effort,” he says.
The first video
“Ten years ago, Ron sent me to the Tigercat factories in Canada,” he says.
The group he was with visited a couple of logging operations and spent four days at the factories.
“So we got to see some cool sh*t. I took a heap of footage on my phone when I was there so the boys could see everything, because it’s not often you can get to a Tigercat factory.”
He ended up creating a video.
“That’s when we started up the Thomassen Facbook page. I put it on there, and it went gangbusters. I think it got about 90 odd thousand views which was pretty cool.”
After that, he began taking more photos and exploring various ideas.
“At first I was just using a phone, then it became the iPad because the iPad took really cool photos – better than the phone.”
Next he borrowed his mother’s camera and took it out on the job.
“People were going ‘what the hell’s going on there?’ At that stage nobody took a camera out in the forest.”
He bought his own camera, a Canon M50 mirrorless digital camera, then another and branched into Go Pros and drones, eventually setting up media company IPTV Production.
“Starting to take footage with a drone took things to another level because when people started seeing things from a drone, it gives them a totally different perspective.”
He says the response to the Tigercat video got him thinking.
“Just about, I suppose, exposing the industry more. It’s not really out there, it’s not really seen.
“People with family, they want to know what their family members are doing. Back then it was definitely seeing what their dad did or what their husband was doing – that was a little bit of a driving force at that stage.
“My parents said, ‘so that’s what you are doing out there with those machines’. People don’t get it, they don’t see it – it’s a good place to work, it’s just nobody knows.”
Enjoying being creative
He also realised he was enjoying the creative element of making videos.
He says video is a medium the people the industry needs to attract are likely to find appealing.
“It’s a medium younger people are going to be using, so the people we need to...
