PROFILE CLEM JACOB HIRE
The house that Clem built
Alan Guthrie meets the founder of Award-winning Clem Jacob Hire in Waterford, whose self-belief enabled the business to flourish despite considerable challenges.
The 7th of February, 2018 was a landmark date for Waterford-based Clem Jacob Hire, being the day on which the company’s quality and high standards were recognised by being presented with the Passionate Hirer Award in the Outstanding Single Depot Hire category at the Executive Hire Show. However, an even more significant event occurred on 15 December, 2014 (just in time for Christmas) when founder Clem Jacob was at last able to replace the former family home that he had sold to help finance the business eight years previously, having come through the deep and unexpected recession.
Clem Jacob’s entry into our industry dates back to 1987 when, having trained as a mechanical engineer, he joined Deise Hire in Waterford. This business had grown out of a concrete business owned by the local Griffin family, which started hiring out some of its mixers and other equipment, and the activity grew. “I started out repairing machines and I just fell in love with hire. The equipment was so varied and I kept meeting different people with new challenges. I occasionally helped out behind the counter and built good relationships with customers.”
so excitedly outlining all the plans I had. We started off with a team of four, which eventually grew to 14 and it became one of SAM Hire’s busiest depots.
“Long hours but we loved it”
“We worked long hours but we loved it. This was in the days before mobile phones were common and I would spend hours in the depot each evening, calling customers on our waiting list for popular items like Kango hammers when they came back from hire, so they could pick them up next morning.”
Clem and Gilly Jacob proudly display the company’s Award with, from left, Colin Dalton, Ray O’Sullivan and Carmel Jacob.
The imposing premises on the outer Waterford ring road.
In 2003, SAM Hire’s parent company was acquired by Grafton Group, and Clem Jacob started considering his future plans. “In February 2006, I went to the funeral of a friend. I arrived at the church early and I just sat there thinking. Later that evening I decided to start my own hire business. We opened Clem Jacob Hire on 2 May on the trading estate where we are still located on the outer ring road in Waterford - a wise move with hindsight given the city centre congestion today.”
In 1991, Clem Jacob took an opportunity to travel in Australia for four months, and while he was there he had a phone call. “Dublin-based SAM Hire had acquired Deise Hire and wanted me to become Depot Manager to run and develop it. The interview took six hours as I was
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So confident was Clem Jacob in his, and his team’s, capabilities that he raised much of the necessary finance for the new operation by selling the family home. “Property prices were rising sharply and I sold for four times what we had paid for it. My wife Gilly backed me and everything went well. We were starting a family at the time, but I told her that we’d have another lovely place of our own in two years. Meanwhile, we were in rented accommodation.”
MOVING FORWARD WITH CONFIDENCE
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