Todd Maitland did not speak until he was nearly nine. At 13 he lost the sight in one eye. In late 2025, at 21, he was named the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation’s Concrete Industry Apprentice of the Year, the top concreting apprentice in New Zealand, and bought his first home with his brother in Paeroa.
“Never in my wildest dreams could I have ever thought of winning this,” he told the Valley Profile when the award was announced, “but it’s pretty cool that I beat everyone else doing apprenticeships in New Zealand, and I did it with an impairment.”
Maitland lives with autism, developmental delay and verbal dyspraxia as well as the loss of sight in his left eye. His route into the trade began about four years ago with school work experience at Brownmore Concrete in Waihī, a small firm owned by Rex Podmore. The Waikato Herald reported in November 2025 that within days he had a paid part-time job, then a full-time apprenticeship, and had left school. He was the first apprentice with autism Podmore had taken on.
Podmore changed how the business worked to suit him. He explained tasks slowly and built visual learning tools and customised materials so he could follow each job. “He is part of the team and a valued worker just like all the rest,” Podmore told the Herald in April 2025, during Autism Acceptance Month. “[I’m] 100% glad I took Todd on, there is just nothing wrong with him … He’s a really good guy.”
Maitland had already put his own view of his boss on the record. Nominating Podmore for a BCITO Building Leaders award, he wrote, in words BCITO published in April 2025, “I’m a 19-year-old boy with Autism, developmental delay syndrome, verbal dyspraxia and I am blind in one eye. Now, that’s a lot for any boss to take on but not Rex, aka Buddy. He has encouraged me and pushed me to be the best version of myself since day one.”
The apprenticeship took him longer than most. He struggled with the written assignments and assessments and was helped through them by his family, his BCITO support person and Podmore. “The whole apprenticeship was adapted to my learning needs and I am ever so grateful that people took the time to believe in me and see that I could actually do this,” he told the Valley Profile. He completed his Level 3 Concrete Construction Skills qualification, and by then had poured the floor of an 1,800 square metre cow shed, the biggest job he had done, the kind of large rural slab where a concrete pump is often used to place the mix before the finishing work begins. BCITO training advisor Sam Thompson called him a standout apprentice. “His enthusiasm for the trade, resilience in overcoming challenges, and commitment to continuous learning make him a role model for others in the industry.”
His mother, Tina, who gave up her job to help him gain independence and who the Herald described as his number one supporter, put it more simply. “We would never have dreamed in our wildest dreams that he’d be where he is now,” she said. Concreting suited him because it is repetitive, she said, and he needed routine. “He took it like a duck to water.”
Basketball runs alongside the trade. Maitland has played since he was 11, is vice-captain of the New Zealand men’s Whaikaha team, the country’s first national side for high-functioning players with intellectual disabilities, captains the Tauranga Special Olympics team, and the Herald reported he was preparing to captain the 2026 Special Olympics New Zealand basketball team. “My dream is to become a professional basketball player,” he told the paper.
Podmore is direct about why any of this happened. “He just needed a chance to prove himself,” he said. To employers nervous about hiring someone with an intellectual disability, he said, “There are lots of people sitting at home right now thinking it’s impossible, but it ain’t.”
Giving someone that chance is the argument employers most often make for the 90-day trial period, which has been available to every employer since December 2023. The Employers and Manufacturers Association’s Alan McDonald wrote in January 2025 that members in regional centres with shallow employment pools “tell us this is an important tool for them when they decide to take a chance on someone coming back to the workforce or entering it for the first time”. Podmore’s door was work experience rather than a trial clause, and whichever route an employer takes, the rules on trial periods are strict and frequently got wrong, as our guide to 90-day trial periods in New Zealand explains.
Maitland is not planning to go anywhere. “I’ve always had to work a lot harder to fit in and prove I am as capable as anyone else,” he told the Valley Profile. The qualification means he could work overseas, and he has thought about trialling for a National Basketball League side and one day starting his own business. “But for now, I’m staying working for my boss, Rex. He’s a great guy and I love working for him and I love what I do.”
Do you know an employer who took a chance on someone and was proved right? Tell us about them in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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