Pacific Aerospace Corporation : Looking back to look forward

Abstract

Richard William Pearse was a farmer’s son living in the back blocks of Waitohi, in the South Island of New Zealand. He toiled away in his secluded workshop on engines and mechanical inventions. The motorcar did not appear in the locality until some years after Pearse had built and run his first petrol engine. His design was based on the steam engine and early oil engines in use in the district, supplemented by information gathered from engineering textbooks. Relying on practical ingenuity and trial-and-error methods to design, he worked alone and financed and built everything himself. Includes questions for dicussion. NOTE: This case study is available with training notes from the University of Auckland Business Case Centre, Case Number: UA-2005-022