Kyle Loades talks about the long journey in business

Which is why I’m almost shocked into spitting out my mouthful of tuna when he declares, “I’m not really a car guy.”

I’m also quietly relieved to hear him say that. I’m not really a car guy either, and I had wondered whether our conversation over lunch would be all torque.

Even so, we spend a good amount of our time talking about cars, and how they have shaped not just the life of Kyle Loades but also the character and future of the city he loves.

AS we sit down at Scratchleys along the harbour front, a large bulk carrier glides past, pulling a broad smile across Loades’ boyish face. It’s not just an awesome sight; it connects Loades to his family. He explains he’s from three generations of waterfront workers.   

Born in 1967, Loades grew up in New Lambton then moved with his family into the city, near King Edward Park. Young Kyle could walk just about every where – down to the mall, to the beach, to his mates around the Hill and Newcastle East.  

When he did buy his first car, a Ford Escort (“it cost all of $750”), it was mostly to get to his job as a teller at the Newcastle Permanent Building Society at Wallsend. Actually, that car was so he could quickly get away from work to “all the important things in life” – rugby training with the Wanderers in winter and sprint sessions on the beach with Nobbys Surf Life Saving Club.

While many young Novocastrian men loved their car, that’s not how Loades felt about his. He viewed his Escort as “a means to an end”.

Indeed, ever since, cars have been a means to an end for Kyle Loades. But it’s been quite a journey.

Loades was working as a manager at the Klosters motor group when he devised an idea that would allow him to become his own boss and would encourage people to rethink how they bought a car. As mortgage broking businesses were becoming increasingly popular with home buyers, he thought, “wouldn’t it be interesting if you could apply that concept to the way people buy motor cars?’

“When I thought of the concept it was probably because I wasn’t a car guy; I was thinking about how do you make life better for people. It was more of an entrepreneurial mindset. It just happened to be cars; it could have been with anything else.

“It was about how can you alleviate the stress that goes with the car-buying process, and I created a business around that.”

In 2001, he founded Auto Advantage, mortgaging the family home to fund it. After a year, cash was drying up, and he had to use a credit card to pay staff. 

“It was a stressful time, but it was a defining time of my life where I just had to find the answer of what to do next,” Loades says, explaining he went to Brisbane to gain some ideas from a business operator there. 

“I just thought I had nothing to lose, otherwise it was going to fail.” 

The business not only survived, it thrived, delivering about 1000 vehicles each year.

“In hindsight, I disrupted the [car] industry,” he muses. “But effectively that’s why it was an opportunity, and it was high risk, because most things that are new like that don’t work, but this did.”  

Loades sold Auto Advantage in 2015, but won’t say for how much.  

“It was enough to have a break for a while but not enough for me to maintain the swimwear collection or aspirations of my children,” smiles the father of three teenage daughters, aged 15, 17, and 19.

Not that he really took a break from business or cars.

Since 2005, Loades had been a director on the board of NRMA, and, in 2014, he became the chairman of the organisation, which has about 2.5 million members.

It’s been such an enjoyable experience,” he says of his time with the motoring body. “A 97-year legacy organisation, which was created out of the horse-and-cart industry being disrupted by the motor car.”

Loades has been at the front of an organisation adapting to new waves of “disruption” and change, from car sharing to the advent of the “autonomous” car, which he forecasts will be on public roads by the year 2025. In spite of, even because of, all these massive changes, Loades believes NRMA has a healthy future, helping motorists.

“The success of the past is not the success of the future,” he says. “You have to start adjusting to being relevant in the future, and we’ve been through a lot of change in recent years, and that’s proven to be successful, but it’s not easy.”

That mantra – the success of the past is not the success of the future – could easily apply to Newcastle and its relationship with vehicles. In a city where cars have been part of the culture, and have been even immortalised in “The Newcastle Song”, major change is coming to how we get around – and we have to adapt, advises Kyle Loades. 

He acknowledges that one of the great attractions of life in Newcastle has been the ease of getting around and being able to find a car park. But as the city grows and the population increases, building infrastructure, such as new roads, is only part of the solution. We have to change our ways, he says.

He asks the question so many frustrated drivers in the city have been asking: “If we’re taking out parking, what are we replacing it with, and how will it work?”     

“We have to get used to doing things differently. We may have to park at a park-and-ride, hook onto the light rail and come into the city. Or cycle.” 

“Cycle? Are you hearing yourself!?,” I ask the NRMA board chairman. 

“Well, it’s quite ironic for a motoring organisation, but pragmatically, yes.”

“You could have every road upgraded and completed, but it still won’t do the job of fully reducing congestion. You have to shift people out of cars and onto alternates to have a balance, not just for congestion, but for environmental and health reasons.”

That doesn’t sound very Novocastrian, I tell him. 

“No it doesn’t,” he replies. “It’s certainly not the past, that’s for sure. But in a sense, it’s going to happen anyway, so you’re either going to embrace it - or not. And ‘not’ means you’re going to miss out on some things. I’m quite a pragmatic person; you’re far better to have an input.”

The Hunter, he reckons, has shown itself to be not only resilient when confronting major shifts, such as the closure of the BHP works, but it has an ability to turn a negative into a positive. The former steel town is now a more diversified city, he says. We just have to believe that change can be good, and that it doesn’t spell the end of all that Hunter people hold dear about living here.

“Leaders of the region need to have a role in helping people not fear change but to understand that change can be positive, and [to answer] what are the benefits, “what does it mean to me?”.

Kyle Loades has been contemplating change lately. His time at NRMA ends in December. Under the organisation’s constitution, a board member can serve for a maximum of 12 years. His last official function is chairing the organisation’s annual general meeting on November 3, which is being held in Newcastle  – “I think that’s good recognition of the region”.

“I’m actually unsure where I’ll be taken to next year,” he says of his future, “and I’m quite looking forward to that, because uncertainty means you’re open to new ideas and experiences.”

Loades indicates he will take on board roles in businesses outside the region, but his home and heart will remain in the Hunter. He intends to continue doing as he has done for years, by “giving back” to local community groups. The organisations whose boards he has been on include the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service and the Hunter Medical Research Institute. And he will still serve on patrols on Nobbys Beach. 

Another marker of change for Loades is that on November 1, he will turn 50.

“Oh, you had to bring up the ‘F’ word!,” he laughs.

“It’s made me think about what’s next. I want to enjoy my work, I want to enjoy my family and friends, I’d also love to see the region progress as quickly as possible without compromising quality living.

“I don’t want to just sit back and go to the beach and relax. I don’t think I’ve got that in me quite yet.”