Brand Tas

Diane Edgerton started her company from a bedroom in West Pine farming country in north-west Tasmania. She and her husband began as roofing contractors.

When her husband wanted a shed, she had one rule: it had to produce income.

So they launched a side business, as a jobbing shop. A different kind of jobbing shop. Diane couldn’t allow herself to make anything that was “just good enough”. Everything had to be of the best possible quality, and as she moved into manufacturing and built a team around her, everyone began to share her passion. Today at Direct Edge the welders see themselves as craftspeople. In the manufacturing and defence industries, the work they are doing in Burnie is considered ultra-premium.

“It’s not about the profit,” says Diane. “It’s not about the money because I don’t really need to be doing it. I actually like the challenge. I think it’s just going back to those early years when I had a hard time. There was a person in there that told me I wouldn’t be anything or do anything and I think it was for me to prove to myself that I could actually be something, do something.”