History

52 Proud Years of History

From humble beginnings selling flyscreens door to door to having our name credited on major Australian building projects, the Micos Group has earned its position in the top tier of the aluminium and glass façade industry. This year the company proudly celebrates 52 years in business. The Micos story is a classic Australian family business success story. It began with two brothers going out on their own with only initiative and drive behind them. Working hard with family support through some tough times, together they developed a thriving business.

From those early beginnings to today, it is a business that has steadfastly combined old world service and values with the cutting-edge technologies of the future.

Selling Flyscreens Door to Door

 The Micos story began back in the 1950s, a time of great change. Aluminium was hailed as “the metal of the future” and set to revolutionise the building industry.

The two brothers, Nick and Mike Micos, were both in their mid 20s and working for A .F. Agnews, then a prominent fabricator of aluminium windows and doors. Seeing aluminium’s potential and fuelled by self-belief and the exuberance of youth, the brothers had the bold and courageous idea to do for themselves what they did for others. They opened their doors for business on 28th August 1958, in a rented set of old horse stables in Angel Street, Newtown in Sydney. As newcomers, work was hard to come by. Just to keep the wheels of their new venture turning, they took to selling flyscreens door to door. Their brothers, Con and Steve, who were then running a milk bar in Sydney’s Rockdale, helped out when they could.

Despite the boys best efforts, business was tough and their future precarious. On one of his casual visits, a close friend, Thimios Magerakis, saw how hard times were for the pair and that they were thinking of giving this new venture away. He left and returned, generously giving Nick his life savings, asking only to be repaid if they made good.

Making Good

Fortune favours persistence. The brothers secured a project for a pharmacy at Liverpool and with further small projects coming their way and an appetite for hard work, the debt was soon repaid. Gradually the brothers were
referred to more projects and the brothers reputation for integrity, quality and loyalty grew.

Before long the adjoining premises were also rented as the orders kept coming. One early client was a canny new builder/developer who saw a market for apartments closer to the city. His first project was in Meriton Street, Balmain and his name was Harry Triguboff.

By the mid 1960s Nick and Mike were joined full time by their brothers, Con and Steve. With their combined efforts the business had outgrown the physical constraints imposed by their premises. In 1965 they designed and cut extrusion dies for their first suite - a sliding window - with Comalco. Shortly after the brothers set out to find new premises to accommodate what they realised would be their livelihood for years to come. In 1969 they moved to an old farm they had acquired in Rhodes Street, Hillsdale, rezoning the premises for industrial use. This would serve the business well for the next three decades.

Their first innovation was the establishment of a window warehouse. Here builders could buy readymade windows and doors off the shelf, in standard sizes and in clear or bronze anodised finishes. The window warehouse complemented their project work, filling in voids in production.

Stepping up

With the onset of the 1970s, construction remained strong and enterprising architects began building and developing for themselves. One such developer was Henry Pollack, head of the newly founded Mirvac. With Nick as the Micos head project supervisor, such was the quality and service provided by the brothers that Micos became Mirvac’s exclusive window and door subcontractor for the next two decades.

Their reputation was spreading fast to players at all levels of industry, reaching the ears of the managing
director of Civil and Civic, Dick Dusseldorp. He was a visionary, combining the disciplines of property, financing, development and investment, and had just begun work on his flagship MLC Centre designed by renowned architect, Harry Seidler.

Few believed it when Micos were awarded the MLC Centre contract. Such was the brothers'' commitment and desire to earn their place in the industry, they expediently kept six levels ahead of the construction programme at all times. One time when the alimak was out, Nick climbed 50-odd storeys to measure and check his sizes to ensure all was 100% correct. After the project’s successful completion, Micos secured one large tender after another.

As the builders with whom they had forged early relationships experienced growth upon growth, Micos grew with them. Took great pride in the quality of its product and its reputation for timely delivery, proactive resolution of problems and post-project service. This cemented the Micos name as a subcontractor that builders could trust.

Looking Ahead

With the introduction of the second generation family members in the early 1990s the need to expand was obvious. One avenue for growth came with the Sydney residential apartment boom in 1994 which was fuelled by one
man’s statement, “And the winner Is Sydney”. With the boom, building design rapidly changed. Buildings got higher, details altered, acoustic treatment of windows and doors became mandatory and clients demanded “something different”. Micos had to expand its product range. This was done at a frantic pace, coming up with 10 new suites in the space of 18 months.

“Being a tight organisation we didn’t have as much red tape as other companies,” Peter recalls. “I sat down one day in a small room with a cluey guy who knew how to draw quickly on computer, and stayed there until the new suite was done. I had floor experience and he had loads of industry know-how, so we knew what to look out for. We designed airport noise suites, acoustic high-rise windows and doors, multiple sliding doors, heavy duty high-rise windows, and on and on. They were creative and exciting times”. Soon, the Micos name became synonymous with highrise apartment buildings. Like his father before him, Andrew Nick Micos supervised flagship projects such as the Elan and Harry Seidler’s Horizon.

“We forged good relationships with all the major construction companies, in both Sydney and Melbourne. But we knew that all good things must end. We also knew that the residential and commercial building booms alternate. Hence our move into curtain wall”.

"They don’t just do residential"

Instilled with the same self-belief as their fathers, in 1998 the next generation of Micos family members ventured into the more engineered building façade specialty of unitised curtain walls. Their fathers and others cautioned them with horror stories of projects having catastrophic results such as glass falling out of buildings. The warnings only firmed their resolve to take on the new challenge. Their first project was the University of NSW Webster Building. Again needing more room, they rented a small factory in Ralph Street, Alexandria. The nephews would gather there after hours to assemble and glaze the panels for the project, well into the early hours of the morning.

"To position the glass accurately, they would rest the glass on my back as we had no cranes," Con laughs. The curtain wall team developed gradually. The nephews restricted projects to six level office buildings, giving themselves time to gain experience and confidence. After completing a string of successful projects, they forged solid relationships with all their curtain wall project builders. Word spread amongst builders, "They don't just do Residential".

In 2002, Micos was awarded the 52 level Lobana House by their longstanding client, Meriton. More recently Micos were also awarded the 32 level Suncorp office tower in Brisbane by Amalgamated Constructions. To further tend to the growing needs of builders, Micos also ventured into frameless assemblies, entries, roofs and awnings, and established a Architectural Division in 2006. Micos could now supply builders with more creative architectural solutions for the impressive foyer and entry demands of modern architecture. Now Micos had complete solutions for all the glass and aluminium elements that comprise the envelope of a building.