Jessica joined the OffsiteNZ team as the Membership Engagement Manager and is also looking after event management and communications. She is a skilled stakeholder engagement manager and has several years’ experience planning events and managing projects. Jessica likes to indulge her creative side; using her interest in graphic design in her professional life as well as designing and making children’s clothes in her spare time.
Originally from Sweden, Jessica has long had a personal interest in prefabrication and is very excited to be working at OffsiteNZ helping to bring prefab houses to the New Zealand public.
Please feel free to contact Jessica if you have any questions about your current membership or how to join OffsiteNZ.
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Jessica Gray
Membership | Events |
Communication
Jessica joined the OffsiteNZ team as the Engagement Manager and looks after member engagement, events management and communications. She is a skilled stakeholder engagement manager and has several years' experience planning events and managing projects. Jessica likes to indulge her creative side; using her interest in graphic design in her professional life as well as designing and making children's clothes in her spare time.
Originally from Sweden, Jessica has long had a personal interest in prefabrication and is very excited to be working at OffsiteNZ helping to bring prefab houses to the New Zealand public.
Please feel free to contact Jessica if you have any questions about your current membership or how to join, partnership opportunities, events and marketing or communications opportunities.
Jessica Gray
Marketing & Membership Manager
Jess Corbett
Financial Officer
Jess Corbett is the Financial Officer for OffsiteNZ.
Jess can be contacted at accounts@offsitenz.com or phone 021 105 9510
Meet our Board Members
Our Board is elected annually at the OffsiteNZ Annual General Meeting in June and represents a wide range of stakeholders and a wealth of exerience. OffsiteNZ Members are invited to nominate and vote for their preferred Board Member each year.
Craig Kellington is the Managing Director at Smart Solution Homes, a company designing, building and installing pre-finished homes throughout the Greater Auckland region.
After 10 years in the renovation industry, and with growing media talk about the need to build more houses, coupled with a real lack of skilled labour to select form, Craig's vision was to work smarter, not harder, and, in early 2017, the concept of Smart Solution Homes was born.
Originally from Scotland, Craig is a fully qualified carpenter/builder. He ran a successful renovation business for 8 years which was sold to put full effort into Smart Solution Homes.
Craig is focused on cost-effectiveness, sustainability, affordable housing and social development projects.
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Craig Kellington
Board Chair
Ben Drake
Deputy Board Chair
Ben Drake has over 13 years of experience working around the world in the built environment and construction industry, including 5+ years as a structrual engineer based in London designing award-winning multi-storey modular/offsite buildings in the UK, Canada and USA. Ben presented a webinar of his experience to (then) PrefabNZ Members in September 2020.
Now back in his native NZ, Ben is very passionate about increasing local uptake of offsite technology and has a lot to offer OffsiteNZ in this space, whether it be through government and industry lobbying, or in-put to wider governance strategies.
Ben's extensive 'hands-on' technical, commercial and regulatory experience combined with his passion and skills as an effective communicator puts him in an ideal position to add significant value to the OffsiteNZ Board.
Johann Betz is the founder and director of Offsite Design Ltd, a consultancy providing specialist engineering services to clients in New Zealand, Australia and beyond, supporting the manufacture and delivery of prefabricated residential and commercial buildings.
Johann has a degree in timber engineering, design, and prefabrication from Rosenheim Technical University in Germany. He also holds a Masters of Engineering in Wood Technology focusing on the industrial engineering and optimisation of timber prefab operations. His unique background combines DfMA know-how with hands-on experience of factory prefabrication. Through his background Johann can help OffsiteNZ Members get started and become more successful in prefabrication.
In New Zealand, Johann has worked as a timber engineer and has advised numerous companies, from start-up to some of the largest and most automated prefabricators in this part of the world, on their prefab systems and prefab factory operations.
Johann is a founding Member of OffsiteNZ and has been a regular contributor to industry education through talks, publications and study tours.
Johann Betz
Board Member
Kim Aitken
Board Member
Born & raised in Ireland before studying Engineering in Scotland, Kim’s background is specialist structural design engineering, refined in the harsh climate of North Central Canada.
Kim is the founder of Truss House, a low-cost high-performance offsite manufactured building system. Kim currently works across NZ, Australia, Canada & USA and complements her technical skills with a detailed knowledge of building science, intellectual property and design for carbon reduction. Kim's experience as a consultant in construction industry adaptation and transition is marked by a strong focus on productivity and decarbonization at scale.
Nico Patchay is Technical Manager at Niche Group, a Lower Hutt-based specialist in modular and commercial construction. With more than a decade in the construction industry, Nico has built his career around the design and delivery of offsite-manufactured buildings, working across the education, residential and commercial sectors.
Nico has consistently pushed the envelope of what modular construction can achieve in New Zealand — working on Importance Level 3 (IL3) modular buildings, helping deliver three-storey modular projects and designing modular buildings of up to 12 storeys. Day to day, he works at the intersection of architectural design, engineering coordination and manufacturing — navigating the practical realities of modular delivery, from consenting pathways and compliance through to transport, lifting and installation. That end-to-end view of how offsite buildings are designed, built and delivered shapes his belief that offsite methods can produce smarter, greener and faster buildings without compromising on design quality.
As a board member of OffsiteNZ, Nico is focused on advancing the organisation's vision of offsite construction becoming mainstream in New Zealand — lifting productivity, quality and value for clients and society — and on supporting the growing community of designers, manufacturers and builders driving that change.
Nico Patchay
Board Member
Janine van Leeuwen
Board Member
Janine van Leeuwen is the Founder and Director of Inspira, a specialist advisory practice helping government and industry turn complex infrastructure, housing and Modern Methods of Construction programmes into projects that can actually be delivered.
With more than 25 years’ experience across New Zealand and internationally, Janine works at the front end of projects — where the big decisions are made, risks are shaped and the right delivery conditions need to be created. Her expertise spans project initiation, programme strategy, governance, modular construction, DfMA, procurement, consenting, and compliance.
Janine is a strong advocate for offsite construction, but not as a standalone solution or simply another way to build. She sees MMC as part of a much bigger delivery system — one that brings together standardised design, manufacturing, procurement, consenting, data and programme thinking to create faster, smarter and more predictable outcomes.
Throughout her career, she has worked alongside government agencies, developers, consultants, manufacturers/suppliers to challenge traditional delivery models and improve the way major programmes are planned and delivered.
As a Board Member of OffsiteNZ, Janine is excited to help shake things up, strengthen connections across the sector, and create a stronger voice for MMC in New Zealand.
She is passionate about sharing knowledge, bringing government and industry closer together and advocating for better procurement, compliance, and consenting settings. Her focus is on creating the conditions for the sector to grow, lifting delivery performance, and helping move offsite construction from isolated projects into scalable programmes of work.
Thomas Kaestner is a prominent German carpenter, civil engineer, and Operations Manager at Hector Egger New Zealand in the South Island. Based in New Zealand for over 18 years, he is a leading expert in DfMA (Design for Manufacture and Assembly) and offsite-manufactured mass and light timber structures, and has authored the NZ Wood Construction Guidance for the timber industry.
Thomas Kaestner
Board Member
Past Board
Our sincere thanks to the following people who have generously volunteered their time and wisdom on the OffsiteNZ Board.
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Stephan Mausli
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John Goldsworthy
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Andrew McKenzie
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Natalya Yakovleva
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Toni Kennerley
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Bernie O'Fagan
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Paul Buetow
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Kerry Edwards
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Mike Fox
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Andrew Booker
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Leah Singer
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Guy Marriage
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Wade Macauley
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Lauren Christie
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Daiman Otto
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Tim Porter
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Greg Pollock
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Chris Moller
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Andre Hodgskin
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Matthew Hay
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Tim Blake
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Ree Anderson
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Craig Davidson
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Eli Nuttall
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David Fraser
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Gordon Barratt
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Jason Cordes
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Gary Caulfield
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Paul O'Brien
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Bella Franks
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Trina Lincoln
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Dr Wayne Sharman
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Dave Strachan
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Michael Cambridge
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Todd Forsyth
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Rod Gibson
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Lawrie Halkett
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Harriet Pilkington
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Rosemary Scofield
Life Members
The following folks have contributed to the success of OffsiteNZ and have been awarded Life Membership. Their ongoing support with OffsiteNZ's endeavours enhances our journey of achieving innovative excellence.
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Pamela Bell
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Daiman Otto
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Guy Marriage
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Chris Moller
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Dr Wayne Sharman
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Andre Hodgskin
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Matthew Hay
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Dave Strachan