When Diane Hermansson (Di) joined Tania Stockton at work for what was meant to be two weeks back in 1996, neither could have predicted that they would still be working side-by-side almost 30 years later.

Today, Tania is Shipping and Finance Manager for Bloch & Behrens Wool (NZ) Ltd, a subsidiary of PGG Wrightson Wool, while Di works across export administration. Together, they form part of an experienced team responsible for keeping New Zealand wool moving around the world.

Their working relationship has survived acquisitions, mergers, restructures, office moves, new technology, earthquakes and a global pandemic. Along the way, it has also grown into a close friendship that extends well beyond the office.

Tania’s career began soon after she left high school in 1990. Following a Saturday morning interview, she was asked to start on Monday afternoon because her new boss was about to leave overseas for six weeks.

“I certainly got thrown in the deep end,” she laughs.

The company was GEPAC International, a small business owned by two North Canterbury farmers that exported lambskins, wool and pelts around the world. And while Tania started as an office junior, she soon learned plenty about shipping, banking and exporting - work that would shape the rest of her career.

GEPAC was later purchased by Wrightson Wool, becoming its wool export operation. And it was during this period that Di entered the picture.

Di had started her own career at 18 with John Marshall and Company. The job was meant to last one year before she went to teachers’ college, but she never left. After taking what was then six months of unpaid maternity leave, she returned part-time before eventually leaving to care for her three young children.

Then came an unexpected phone call from Talman in Sydney, the wool computer system she had used at John Marshall and Company.

“He asked if I could come in for two weeks to help this nice girl called Tania at the Wrightson office,” Di recalls. 

“We still joke to this day saying, I’ve done my two weeks - can I go now?”

The answer, three decades later, is apparently still no.

The operation was exceptionally busy, constantly evolving and in hindsight there was no way she could’ve even made a dent in two weeks. But Di says she probably would have declined if she had been asked outright to return to full-time employment with three young children. Instead, she arrived to help temporarily and enjoyed the work so much that - as they say - the rest is history.

Over the years, the pair have experienced some of the wool industry’s biggest organisational changes together, including the formation of PGG Wrightson in 2005 and the later purchase of Bloch & Behrens.

Not every transition was easy. During one restructure, Tania and Di had to reapply for their jobs without knowing whether either - or both - would remain with the business. They were among only a few members of their team whose roles continued.

After six difficult weeks working alongside colleagues who knew they were leaving, Tania and Di packed up their computers themselves and had to drive them to the Bloch & Behrens office.

“We had the computers strapped into the car with seatbelts and arrived asking, ‘Can we have a desk please?’” Tania says.

Other office moves were similarly hands-on. At times, they were given banana boxes and only a couple of days to pack. On another occasion, people stood nearby selecting the desks they wanted as the team prepared to leave.

However, the changes also reinforced the value of having a trusted colleague alongside you.

“We didn’t know if we would both be back together,” Tania says. “It was a big change and quite traumatic, so it was always a relief when we knew we had each other.”

Their partnership was tested again during the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, with the pair in the middle of lunch in Hornby when the earthquake struck.

“I was trying to get under the table and Di remained calm, said don’t run and carried on eating,” Tania recalls. “She was, and always has been, my calming influence.”

Despite the widespread disruption, the team managed to keep shipments moving, including two that came close to missing their scheduled departure.

“Everybody knew their jobs very well and knew what needed to be done,” Tania says. “By some miracle, we kept it going.”

The same experience and teamwork came to the fore during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Working from home, the team kept the operation running and did not miss a shipment. Over the years, the pair have even dealt with containers of wool being lost when a ship caught fire - although thankfully, as far as they know, they have not had one fall overboard.

Di recalls in the early years, when overseas messages were sent by telex, while large computers sat on wooden tables with wheels so you could ‘push them around’ and printers needed their own air-conditioned room. 

And as one of the earliest Talman users in New Zealand, Di remains the team’s resident expert in its many intricacies.

“Something that might take one of us 20 minutes will take her five,” Tania says.

In the early days, to keep the containers shipping and month end done by cut-off, it could mean working until eight or ten at night, on Saturdays or even all day Christmas Eve. Their children would come into the office with them, running around and playing while their mothers finished the work.

Their work has also expanded beyond traditional wool exports, with Tania helping to set up and manage the Wool Integrity online store, which sells products made by New Zealand and international brand partners. 

And after all the years working in wool, the pair definitely agree it grows on you (just metaphorically speaking of course). 

“You notice when you’re looking at products, they might say they are made from wool, then you find out it’s only 6% and the rest synthetic, so it definitely makes you more aware of what you’re buying,” says Tania. 

“Tania is great in op shops and has brought back many amazing wool coats from her expeditions - she’s good at spotting a bargain,” adds Di. 

As they both say, once you get into wool, you can’t really get out of it. 

“Once a woolly, always a woolly’. 

For both women, the strongest memories are ultimately about people.

They have supported each other through weddings, funerals, parenthood, house moves and family milestones. Di’s 13 grandchildren have all received blankets from our products sold on the Wool Integrity store and her second husband is a woolly with another company - while Tania met her husband through a former wool representative at a social club event she organised, and they are now approaching their 25th wedding anniversary.

“For me, Di has always been a great friend and a great support,” Tania says. 

“She was there when I was a single mother and has always been there for me, through work and our family lives. We pretty much know everything about each other and can’t afford to fall out.”

Their experience also strengthens the wider export team, where the work flows in a circle, with each person’s contribution affecting the next stage. Decades of shared knowledge allow Tania and Di to anticipate what colleagues will need and resolve small issues before they become larger ones.

That understanding sits at the heart of their advice to the next generation.

“You have to be passionate about the product and you have to be a team player,” Di says. 

“Everything you do will affect something further down the line. We all have our ups and downs, and that’s when someone else might step up and do something for you that week.

“We may moan a lot, but we always come back!” 

So as PGG Wrightson celebrates 175 years, Tania and Di’s almost 30-year partnership represents an important part of that wider story. 

Tania has long joked that Di can’t retire until she does, as it is difficult to imagine one without the other - and it’s almost just as difficult to imagine how many shipments, system changes and office moves their enduring partnership has helped the business successfully navigate over three decades.

We're celebrating 175 years alongside rural New Zealand. Read the next story.