Case Studies
Issue No. 17 - June/July 2004
TOPPCo
Topp Effort
The ‘larrikin’ badge is bandied about freely these days, but it wouldn’t be misapplied to serial entrepreneur, Rob Curtin.
Rob’s enterprises take fascinating shapes—in one case, of sheep. His utility, a mobile advertisement, sports a double-take-generating fibreglass flock produced by his latest venture, Eurocar.
Eurocar, a fibreglass moulding firm, creates flamboyantly artistic decorations. The older of Rob’s present businesses The Old Plaster of Paris Company, does much the same in a different medium.
Rob and his wife Julia run successful operations in Adelaide and Melbourne, splitting their time between the Melbourne inner suburbs and Somerton Park.
Rob, who failed art “miserably” at school, made underachievement an art form early in life, when his career on the railway got off to no start at all.
“I failed the test for junior porter at Islington,” Rob laughs. “But they needed porters desperately at Port Lincoln, so off I went at age 16.”
Making his way back to Adelaide and upwards through the ranks from porter into the ticketing office, Rob eventually held positions of responsibility in the suburban and interstate rail offices.
“After that I was in travel for 10 years and worked as a tour guide. Eventually I was manager in the Adelaide Kings office.
“Then I was in real estate; that was rewarding financially, but that’s about it.”
As office work palled, Rob turned more to his budding hobby — statuary. Opening The Statue Shop on Broadway in Glenelg in 1979, he built a flourishing business making and distributing outdoor decorative elements. He consolidated shopfront and factory (his garage) onto a former service station site on Brighton Road in 1979, but left the business soon after.
“I’ve been married three times, and every time I remarried I started another business — as you do.
“Julia and I started off from scratch — I gave m...
