Rob Elstone is a Hawkes Bay boy, having grown up in Eskdale.
Rob started his Electrical career in the Royal New Zealand Air Force as an Avionics Technician, working on the Iroquois helicopter, including deploying with the UN to East Timor.
Over the last 20 years Rob has held commercial roles as an electrician and project manager, including nationwide school data role outs, under the government upgrade project.
Rob moved fully into the industrial realm with Panpac Sawmill. Taking on a project's role, dealing with plant and safety upgrades and Process Improvement. Following his passion for machines and automation Rob couldn’t resist the chance to work at Fruit Handling Systems, subsequently merged into Compac Sorting. Covering roles of Electrical Workshop Manager to Automation Team Lead, building on the machine safety and automation expertise. This role included the design of UL and CE electrical installations and documentation for worldwide plant and machine export.
This wide range of experience and natural hands on ability allows Rob to view your project with a unique knowledge base, ensuring the best solutions for your needs.
Jarrod started his working life in the Air Force where he spent 15 years in the aviation industry as an avionics maintenance engineer. After leaving the Air Force he moved to Australia where he worked for a couple of years in the underground mining sector.
Returning to NZ he came across Rob and they soon started working on projects together through RBE in the post harvest industry. A few years later, in 2019, they founded Hortworx together.
Jarrod enjoys the challenge of overcoming unforeseen obstacles and thinking outside the box to come up with innovative solutions for process improvements. On top of working full-time, Jarrod is currently in the final stages of completing his bachelor of engineering and innovation management with a minor in mechatronics degree.
Jordan spent 7 years in the Navy where he studied engineering. Once leaving the Navy he moved on to FHS as their Workshop Manager. After a couple of years he shifted to Compac as a Project Leader.
Following his passion for innovation he then moved to Hayden & Custance where his focus was dealing with robotics and automated equipment. Jordan loves finding the next best thing and looking for ways to do things that no one else is doing.
That’s what he loves about working at Hortworx. Here no two days are the same so there is no risk of getting bored when you build the same machine over and over again. At Hortworx there are always challenges in engineering and the opportunity to turn new ideas into products.
Kestutis is an Electrical Engineer with a Masters in Automation. Originally from Lithuania, he started work as a Commissioning Engineer at a company called Dematic.
Through this role he was able to travel around Europe visiting different warehouses where he was able to see first hand what he had learnt at University being put into practice. Through these visits he learnt a tremendous amount about automation and automated warehouses. Arriving in NZ in 2015 he started out as an Automation Engineer at Compac before moving to join the Hortworx team.
Kestutis loves to find and create the best solutions for the customer to optimise their efficiencies and output in the production line through automated machinery.
