While many around the country are enjoying a long weekend, this three day window has provided an ideal opportunity for relocating our head office into our new premises that we are sharing with our sister companies Icon Cancer Care and Radiation Oncology Queensland.
Yesterday saw the culmination of a huge week of packing for our Mansfield team as we sorted through and boxed up what had accumulated during the past seven years, and mid-morning we paused for a moment of reflection at the farewell morning tea our friends and colleagues at DoseAid (formerly known as APHS Packaging) held for us.
Celebrating the end of this era with them was especially fitting, as the creation of this business was what had initially triggered the move to this location from our previous premises. The two storey office with the enormous empty warehouse behind was identified as an ideal location to house the new medication compliance manufacturing business that we wanted to build, and the foundation team members were the first to enter the building and oversee the refurbishment of the offices before the remainder of the head office team joined us there in December 2008.
The empty warehouse behind saw many iterations of plans worked through over the next few years as we applied the learnings from the first manufacturing facility we built in Perth, before the final version came to life in 2012.
Our dream was always that growth of both DoseAid and our Epic Pharmacy Group would mean that the time would come when there was no longer enough space in the building to house both, and we are delighted that day has now arrived. While we no longer retain any ownership in the DoseAid business after its sale to Symbion in 2012, we still have a significant customer relationship and close personal friendships with many team members who we worked with for so long, so were thrilled to be able to mark this milestone with them.
As Dawn and I cut the farewell cake on Friday morning together, we reflected on how much has happened since we first sat down and started planning what a medication compliance manufacturing business might look like. It was a great way to celebrate what has been achieved, and also provided a great illustration of what enormous change is possible within a relatively short time frame.
As the removal trucks rolled in last night, ready to load up the boxes and move onto the next stage of our business journey I have every confidence that the next seven years will hold just as much change, just as many highs and lows, and will no doubt take us on to places that we haven’t yet envisaged, but the one thing we know is with an Epic team anything is possible!
Thanks for the memories Mansfield, it’s been a blast and you will always occupy a hugely important chapter if we ever get around to writing the full Epic story…