From being willing to do anything to earn a living, to building a 20-year-strong company

Grit, honest faith in God and a willingness to learn.

This is what Malcolm Nesbitt, who lives in Salt Rock with his wife and daughter, believes enabled him to go from sleeping under his car to owning and running a respected civils company in Ballito.

The owner of Coast 2 Coast, Malcolm Nesbitt said his father showed him the value of hard work from an early age.

“My father was a disciplined man who worked at the Kariba Dam in the former Rhodesia, giving us a warm living in a tent while the dam was being built,” said Malcolm, who was born in Bloemfontein in 1955.

“His philosophy was that hard work never killed anybody,” said Malcolm with a laugh.

At 18 Malcolm left home to make his own living, finding work as a dredging operator on the South Coast while living in the back of his VW Variant.

“I earned R300 a month. Being booked by police was common for me because they thought I was a vagrant.”

Malcolm eventually told Sasko managers at the Jacobs plant that he would do anything for work.

“I cleaned floors and made tea for people, and when I left to mine Bentonite in Hluhluwe, my bosses told me I could always come back.”

Learning as he went he applied for a job as a dredge operator without knowing anything about how to do the job.

“I stopped at a bridge over the Umkomaas River and stayed with a dredge operator for a few hours to pick up a few critical points for the job. I was focused on survival.”

Malcolm eventually moved to Doringkop and took up farming while working at Romatex in Jacobs, doing maintenance while selling the milk from his cows on the side.

He found better work in the early 80s as a maintenance fitter for a brick company and describes his encounter with the troubled Frolbrik brick manufacturing plant near Stanger at the time.

“Raj Bodasingh told me that if I could manage the factory for him, he would buy the floundering business,” said

Malcolm, who remained manager of the plant for 20 years.

Malcolm remembers the Bodasingh family fondly.

“They treated me like I was a part of their family,” he said, never forgetting their generosity towards him.

Never distant from the memory of cooking cans of baked beans over a flame for a meal, Malcolm started Coast 2 Coast Paving in 1999.

Taking over the maintenance contract for a prominent North Coast estate since 2011, in addition to general work with paving, bricklaying and construction, the business blossomed.

He gives all credit to his longest employees Ishwar Singh, Neelan Jagatheesan and Mervin Govender, having stayed with him for 21, 16 and 10 years respectively.

“Loyalty drives this team, and it is nothing without them.”

The youth of today have a lot to gain from a man who graduated from the school of hard knocks.

Asked what advice Malcolm would give to matriculants of today, he said the problem with those entering the workforce was “a sense of entitlement and a loss of hard work as people feel they are owed a living.”

“Be punctual to work, do not be a clock watcher and then when you collect your paycheck, you know you have earned it.

“There is no easy way out. You need to work hard, have faith and trust God.”

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