From jobless to boss

FIONA GOODALL

REWARDING TIMES: Bill Milnes battled through adversity to develop a respected, successful and growing immigration consultancy company.

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THE "desert years" made Bill Milnes.

The Howick resident spent three years without a job fighting to clear his name through the courts after being wrongfully sacked in 1990.

It was a serious test of the man's character – at his lowest point he contemplated suicide.

Now he is director of a thriving and expanding immigration consultancy company with a new head office at building number one, Queen St.

The six-strong team processes immigration applications and appeals for corporate and family clients.

And growth in corporate business in a weak economic climate was a big factor in their move downtown.

Manukau mayor Len Brown officially opened the waterfront office this week.

Mr Milnes' journey from employee to employer began when he was fired.

The married father of two had "absolutely nothing" for three tough years of litigation.

His attorney Matt Robson helped him find his feet again.

He won the protracted legal battle and gave an unemployable Mr Milnes a job in 1993.

Mr Milnes took over the small immigration firm in 1996 and merged companies with Judy Klosser to form Access Immigration based on Pakuranga Rd in 2001.

Bringing in skilled labour for projects such as the engineers who worked on the Newmarket Viaduct pays the company's bills but Mr Milnes says helping people whose lives have been "utterly screwed up" provides emotional rewards.

"There are some really special cases and you know that you've made a deep impression on their lives," he says. "I don't doubt if we had not done a good job for one particular guy he'd have been deported back to Iraq and executed."

Most of the firm's clients come from Western Europe, the United Kingdom, North America and Southeast Asia.

He says the economy benefits hugely from them.

Mr Milne now believes he's doing "what I'm supposed to be doing".

The "desert years" are long gone but lessons from those hard times remain.

"Everyone has good and bad times in their life. Everybody's struggling with issues at any particular time," he says.

"It's how we respond to those issues that determines whether we go under or whether we come up.

"And sometimes you get someone like Matt Robson who is just there when you're at absolute bottom and they're able to give you that bit of a hand up."

- © Fairfax NZ News