From Australia to Canada

Michael Match was Managing Director for the Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group in Australia, and is now working in the same capacity for the group in North America. 

 
This means that, in geographical terms, the native Canadian is familiar with the entire 
railway technology group all over the world. And can thereby paint a clear picture of the 
power of collaboration in the Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group and how this collaboration brings 
benefits to rail operators around the globe.  
 

“Although this year we celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the successful union of Sersa and the Rhomberg Rail businesses my personal journey had started earlier. That journey came full circle with the merger and demonstrates how international and diverse both companies were at the time of the merger and how those characteristics have blossomed as we have formed one formidable international group. 

I was born a first generation Canadian in Kingston, Ontario, Canada in the 1960’s. The youngest of five children, my parents immigrated to Canada in 1957 from Britain. My mother was an English country girl who met my father who had arrived in Britain as a displaced person after the war. My father was from Vienna and the son of an electrical engineer who had been involved in the electrification of the Vienna railway. He retrained in Canada as a teacher and we moved as a family to a small city called Brockville when I was 7. I went to school there through to secondary school and couldn’t wait to get out of the place to see the big world. 

So at 17 years of age,  I headed west as Canadians did then to the warmer (but always rainy) Vancouver. I studied Biological Sciences through a technical institute and on graduating rather than continue my studies I decided I would go and travel the world with a view to resuming my studies after a year of travel. I obtained a Working Holiday visa for Australia and travelled there in 1981. After more travel I returned to Australia permanently in 1983 and freshly married, I set about making a life there. As the years progressed, I returned to Brockville to take care and deal with the passing of my parents. Each visit made me understand more why the historical nature of Brockville, it’s friendly and open people, and the beauty of the 1000 islands region where it is located, made it actually not the bad place (read BORING) of my high school years. After all it really seemed to be a rather nice place to live.  

In Australia I didn’t progress a career in science as it would have required more study and I worked in a variety of management positions progressing into corporate roles. Eventually I moved into various positions in the engineering services sector and started dealing with the railways, always as a supplier, in the late 1980’s. The railway changed from being an instrument of government, when elections came the government in Sydney could literally be re-elected or kicked out if the trains were running on time. The unions and government policies made for big inefficiencies in a business development role. 

With the changes and opportunities that presented so by the late 1990’s the railways were being corporatized and getting forced to be more efficient. This led to many Australian and offshore players coming into the railway maintenance services sector. I developed a rail civil construction business focussed on rail structures. We undertook the contractor installed rail bridge on the Sydney network and quickly developed one of the most respected rail services business in the state. I’ve always been a networker, looking for ways to work together with like minded companies to deliver better outcomes for our rail clients. Through that networking, one day in 2008 I found myself at a site meeting for a rail bridge renewal in suburban Sydney where a young (well younger than now anyway) Richard Morgan told me how he had joined Track Australia (the company that was to become Rhomberg Rail Australia) and that I should join him there. Richard and I had collaborated on a few bids prior to this and I knew his reputation as one of the best track engineers around so the idea of joining took hold pretty quickly. 

A bit of further background, I had already sat down with a young (well younger than now anyway) Garry Thuer and visiting Hubert Rhomberg to explore how our companies could work together in the sector. So likely it wasn’t a total surprise for Garry to present to Austria that he wanted to add me to his team in a business development role. What might have been a bigger surprise would have been that the rail structures team that I had recruited and developed in the civil company announced that if I was going to Track Australia then they were coming too. So Garry as leader of a track maintenance and projects organisation with a turnover of about $15m had to quickly convince folk in Austria that adding not just me but an entire structures division turning over $10m was doable for such a young and already strained by growth company. 

Everyone who works in Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group knows that one of the core elements that empowers us to do our best work, and drive innovative and dynamic growth is our private ownership structure. In this case, Walter Heinz and Hubert Rhomberg were immediately able to make the decision to proceed and instantly we had not only a larger company in Australia but a more diversified service offering, following in the footsteps of the Track Australia focus on excellence and ‘best in business’ approach.  

I know that Richard will tell more of the story of our journey over many years in Australia to take that business to where he and his team have it today. Lots of fun and laughs, lots of ups and downs, lots of middle of the night in possession stress but I wouldn’t have missed a minute of it. We all pushed and pulled to create a company founded on success in the unique Rhomberg way. I saw from the beginning  that I would need to create bridges to the group operations in Europe so travelled there often building understanding And friendships across borders and language. 

At the time of the merger with Sersa in 2012 one of our core Australian rail clients was looking at how we could assist them with our international expertise to deliver a world class flash butt welding capability. Hannes Mathias picked up the technical analysis of seeing if we could build a business in that space and Sersa just happened to have a flash butt welder they had moved to their Canadian business that would be available. Hannes organised some of our machine guys to visit the machine and met them on site. Well we never ended up bringing over that welding truck but it turned out that when I asked where they were going to see it they said “somewhere starting with a B”. I said not Brockville but of course yes it was. Of all the places in the world for Sersa to have bought a rail business they had one where I grew up – fully half way around the world from where we were in Australia. 

So how did I end up in Canada and now running a North American business starting that same growth pathway. By 2016 my personal life had changed considerably and I was on a second marriage with 2 young sons suddenly in the mix. Meanwhile my role in helping the Australian team had come to a point where I knew it was time for Richard and his team to take the business to a new level.  The opportunity for me to have my new family live and understand where I came from. The challenge of a new business to develop and build in such a large market. The merger of Sersa and Rhomberg opened an opportunity for me that would have been inconceivable any where else. 

Of course the journey continues as we grow the business in North America. More successes and failures, hard work and good friendships developed with rail folk in a huge rail market. Now with the full and active support of friends known and worked with around the world over many years. I’m so happy to see the successful foundation and culture growing like new seeds in the spring in North America and I’m empowered by all my international colleagues. I’m proud to be the first Rhomberg manager to run a ‘Sersa’ company and I watch my family grow with a truly international experience and world understanding. 

I have seen the world not from a tour bus but next to colleagues who share their own worlds with me on rail sites across the world (and often in the middle of the night). Travelling together, challenging and supporting each other we should never forget how lucky we are to not work for a company driven only by short term bottom line calculations. We get to work together to deliver better outcomes for our customers. When we have problems or challenges we have an entire world of likeminded rail professionals to support us and owners who have rail ‘running in their blood’. 

I look forward to all of us in RSRG building the most enthusiastic and best railway professionals in the world as we take the power and strengths these two great companies built and then made stronger as one. Many of you know one of my motto’s is that in our own markets we always have the chance and try to be ‘best in business’ but in the Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group we get a bigger chance, we get to always to try to be ‘best in world’. I know of many stories similar to mine where the world has become a smaller place through our unique rail family and I welcome the opportunity to work with all of you for years to come. Oh and I really look forward to more hard work and laughs.”