OUR STORY
WE HAVEN'T ALWAYS BEEN KNOWN AS LUMEN
We started as two small firms of ex-linesmen and engineers. They merged and along the way, three more disciplines and a second country joined the story, before we became Lumen in 2019. Here's the full timeline, with a few of the milestones all along the way.
1994
WHERE IT STARTED
100%
EMPLOYEE OWNED
2
COUNTRIES
ORIGINS
1994 - LineLink
CHRISTCHURCH
LineLink was founded in Christchurch, bringing together engineers who'd built their careers at the New Zealand Electricity Department. A cooperative of sole traders focused on transmission line design during the privatisation of the NZ electricity industry.
1998 - Power Line Solutions
WELLINGTON
When Transpower's TP2000 restructuring saw over 200 engineers leave to set up on their own, Wal Marshall established Power Line Solutions in Wellington. It quickly became a trusted engineering consultancy in the capital.
2004 - Linetech Consulting
MERGER
Recognising their shared values and complementary expertise, LineLink and PLS merged to form Linetech Consulting Ltd. Employee-owned from the outset, with offices in Christchurch, Wellington and Hamilton, Linetech grew steadily over the following years.
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GROWTH & DIVERSIFICATION
2009 - Structural Engineering Services
ACQUISITION
Linetech acquires John Snook Limited, a civil and structural engineering firm seen as a natural complement to its core lines engineering work. The division continues trading under its own name before rebranind as RedFox in 2015 before becoming Lumen's Civil & Structural team.
2013 - Energy & Carbon Services
ACQUISITION
Enercon, an energy and carbon consultancy founded independently by Kees Brinkman in 2004 is purchased by Linetech. The division keeps trading under its own name for a time on the strength of the goodwill it had built, before becoming Lumen's Energy & Carbon team.
2015 - Dedicated Corrosion & Protection team established
NEW BUSINESS UNIT
Coatings and corrosion expertise that had long sat inside the Christchurch lines team becomes its own division, later trading as Pacific Corrosion Consultants, before becominh Lumen's Corrosion & Protection team.
2016 - Expansion to Australia
EXPANSION
Dan Tombleson and Brett Barnes open Lumen's first permanent Australian office in Adelaide, focusing on strategic asset management consulting for Australian electricity networks. We've since expanded our service offering in Australia to include Field Testing and we've established a dedicated Overhead Lines Engineering based in Adelaide.
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2016 - LineTech Holdings
RENAME
As the business grew into new disciplines and new countries, Linetech Consulting became LTH, a name that reflected the broader group it had become while keeping its roots in lines engineering.
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IDENTITY
2019 - Lumen
REBRAND
LTH rebrands as Lumen, bringing all divisions together under one unified identity for the first time. The decision was driven by a combination of practical and cultural motivations: streamlining email addresses, websites, and templates into a single coherent system, and fostering a stronger sense of shared identity across the team. Since then we've kept growing on both sides of the Tasman.
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