The life and legacy of Peter Taylor. By Campbell McInnes
For more than 50 years, Peter Taylor has quietly shaped the way Australia builds with timber. As founder of Multinail, he transformed a nascent nail plate business into one of the country’s most respected names in frame and truss manufacturing, driven not by ambition alone, but by integrity, innovation and an unshakeable belief in people.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF AN INDUSTRY CAREER
An everlasting legacy begins somewhere. For Peter Taylor, it began in the late 1970s with a few years spent managing Sanford Truss Australia, growing an understanding of what timber fabricators actually need, and a pivotal three months studying under Carol Sanford, the American architect credited with founding the nail plate industry, in the United States.
That time in America proved formative. Peter returned to Australia with ideas that would redefine how trusses were made here.
He introduced the one-millimetre nail plate to the Australian market at a time when the industry still largely relied on heavier two-millimetre plates.
Peter explained, “We introduced to Australia the 1mm plate, which was far more effective and efficient than the 2mm plate. Carol also introduced the manufacturing of trusses using the Roll-A-Master system.”
The thinner plate could be rolled directly into the timber, not just stamped or pressed, making production faster, more efficient and far more scalable. He also introduced roller systems that influenced the way the broader industry manufactured trusses for decades, a lineage that runs directly through to Multinail’s modern Glideaway one-touch automated truss production system.
The industry itself was changing rapidly. Cyclone Tracy had torn through Darwin on Christmas Day 1974, and the devastation it left behind forced an urgent rethink of how Australia built.
“Cyclone Tracy wiped Darwin out. The Prime Minister sent two structural engineers into Darwin, to determine new codes, new designs, new criteria, and even building materials. The building material suppliers then hired structural engineers to design their building material to cater for the cyclonic areas that Australia has today.”
The rebuilding push that followed accelerated growth in the nail plate and truss industry. Fabricators needed more reliable, engineered solutions, and that demand created real opportunity for those ready to deliver it.
By the late 1970s, Peter had grown restless within the corporate structure at Sanford Truss. He believed there was a better way to serve the people he had come to know across the industry, not as accounts or numbers, but as business owners with real needs and real relationships.
“The ability to service the customers under the corporate way was just not working. People did not want to be a number. I started out trying to offer a better way of servicing, by being a private company rather than a corporate company.”
In 1979, backed by those relationships and his own conviction, Peter Taylor founded Multinail.
STARTING OUT: EARLY STRUGGLES AND THE FIRST CUSTOMERS
The early days of Multinail were anything but comfortable. Almost before the business had drawn its first breath, a competitor moved to acquire Sanford Truss outright, removing what would have been a natural starting customer base almost overnight. The corporate pressure did not ease from there.
Peter recalled, “Corporate pressure that was applied at that time when I was starting out, was very intense. Not only were they taking my potential customers, but they were trying to take my existing customers. I think having respect for the customers that I was dealing with, and them having respect for me, we managed to get through that and managed to build a very strong relationship over many years.”
That mutual respect would prove to be the cornerstone of everything Multinail built. It was through the introduction of Reg Hubbard of Hastings Trusses that Peter connected with Jim Cheney, who was just starting up Westruss at the time. Westruss became Multinail’s first external customer, and remains a loyal partner to this day, a relationship stretching back more than four decades.
In those earliest years, cashflow was tight and every dollar earned went straight back into the business. The Taylor family did what families in small businesses have always done, whatever it took. Peter and his wife grew plants at night on their Port Macquarie property, and the children helped sell them by the roadside and at local markets to generate extra income.
Travis Taylor (COO, Multinail Advanced), one of Peter Taylor’s sons, said, “I recall growing up that we use to have a nursery, and on the weekends, you would take two ‘very well-behaved kids’ and sell plants on the side of the road. Do you remember those days?
Peter chuckled to himself, then responded, “I do, but I don’t remember the well-behaved kids… In the early days, all the income that was generated by the company, was fed back into the company. Having a nursery on the property enabled us to grow plants at night, which we sold beside the highway road at the time.”
It was a humble beginning, but Peter has never been embarrassed by it. If anything, those years built something important, a deep and genuine understanding of what it means to run a family business, to feel the weight of payroll, to lie awake at night working through problems that have no easy answers.
“It is only people who have started business similar to ours, whether they be fabrication business or other, that would realise the pressures that come upon the senior family members, not only to support their family but to also support their customers and support their staff.”
Peter’s son, Trent Taylor (CEO, Multinail Group), asked him: You told me one day how you manage stress, can you explain this to the others (who were gathered at the time)?
“To try and relive my stress, I use to have a ride-on lawnmower and I would cut our quite extensive lawns, if I hadn’t solved the problem after the first cut, I would start a second cut, and hopefully by the end of the second cut, I would have sorted out the problem.” Peter would often joke and say, “tough decisions took a bottle of wine. Really tough ones took two.”
RESILIENCE TESTED: WEATHERING THE STORMS
The challenges that followed in Multinail’s early years would have stopped many businesses cold. A minor cyclone tore through the Wauchope site in the early 1980s, blowing out windows, lifting the roof and scattering parts of the factory across neighbouring properties. Insurance covered the damage, but the recovery demanded enormous effort from a small team with limited resources.
Then came a crisis that tested not just the business, but Peter’s character. A semi-trailer carrying a 24-tonne load of nail plates rolled near Kempsey. The insurers deemed the plates resalable. However, Peter disagreed, “At that stage of the business, I really needed that money, but my sense of integrity was stronger. I managed to rally some of the team to work through the Easter long weekend to produce the entire order again from scratch.”
The compromised plates were buried. Every one of them. The replacement order was manufactured over Easter, and the Brisbane fabricators waiting on delivery were not let down. It was a decision that cost money the business could ill afford, but it sent an unmistakable message about what Multinail stood for.
Later came a machinery shed fire that destroyed equipment and halted production.
But perhaps the most damaging blow came when a major competitor moved to induce more than a third of Multinail’s customers to break their contracts. The loss was sudden and severe. The legal battle that followed stretched across eight years and became a landmark commercial case in Queensland.
“We lost sales overnight, and paid significant legal fees,” Peter reflected, “It nearly broke us.”
But Multinail prevailed. The ruling affirmed what the company had always stood for. That experience, as brutal as it was, only deepened the resolve to build something that would endure. 
The Global Financial Crisis presented yet another test. While many businesses in the sector cut staff to survive, Peter took a different view. He held onto his key people, backing them for the long term even when the short-term numbers made it uncomfortable.
“While others downsized, we held onto our key people,” his son Travis Taylor recalls. “It was tough, but everyone pulled together. That resilience came from culture.”
INNOVATION AS A WAY OF THINKING
If resilience kept Multinail alive through the hard times, it was a restless commitment to innovation that drove the business forward. Peter has always believed that standing still is not a neutral position, it is, in fact, falling behind.
One of the most consequential decisions of his career came after an early outsourcing arrangement went badly wrong. Peter had commissioned six C-frame presses from an external manufacturer. They looked impressive when delivered. Within six months, every one of them had failed.
“I then realised, that if I was going to be involved with machinery development and supporting my customers with machinery, it had to be done in-house.”
That decision to bring machinery development inside the business became a turning point, not just for Multinail, but for how the company was perceived across the industry. By controlling design, manufacturing, and servicing, Multinail transformed itself from a product supplier into a genuine technology and solutions partner. Strategic acquisitions, including Spida and Mango, expanded capability and reach further still.
Yet the most ambitious chapter of that story is the Glideaway, a one-touch automated truss production system that began life as a rough sketch on a napkin.
When Peter’s son Trent Taylor presented the concept, the path to building it was far from clear. But the instinct was immediate.
“When Trent came to me with a napkin full of drawings, having been in the industry for an efficient amount of time, it was very obvious that the proposal being put forward was something exceptional. The concept was what the industry needed.”
What followed was a seven-year development project, navigated through a global pandemic, driven by complete faith in the team. The result is a system that delivers Australian-made automation to fabricators who might otherwise have been priced out of that technology. For Peter, that is a source of genuine pride, “I’ve always believed that each generation should be a little better than the one before. That’s how industries improve, how businesses improve, and how societies grow.”
THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE BUSINESS
Ask Peter Taylor what he is most proud of, and he does not talk about products, patents, or profit margins. He talks about people.
“The people who’ve grown with us, the relationships we’ve built, the trust we’ve earned, and the fact of what’s been created has heart. That matters to me. Success is one thing, but building something with values, something that lasts because people believe in it, that’s what I’m most proud of.”
That philosophy runs through everything Multinail does. The company’s customer base reads like a map of Australian family business, truss fabricators who have been with Multinail for 30 and 40 years. Those kinds of relationships do not happen by accident. They are the product of a deliberate and sustained commitment to treating people well.
Peter has never drawn a sharp line between how he treats staff and how he treats customers. Both are part of an extended family. The company’s long-serving employees are not a statistic. They are, in Peter’s view, the proof of concept for everything Multinail believes.
“I have tried throughout my whole life, to make sure that each staff member is fairly treated in all aspects of Multinail, and I think that has been proven to be successful, in respect of the number of people we have still working in the company, in excess of 30 years, 25 years, 20 years and 10 years. I think that this is what is going to enable Multinail to successfully work many years into the future.”
That commitment extends well beyond the factory floor. Trent Taylor, the man who presented that famous napkin sketch, offered a candid insight into his father’s character during a tribute that accompanied the awards presentation:
“A little-known fact into the reason as to why so many people are loyal to this guy, who is very private, and I only know a snippet of what is going on, but in almost 50 years of employing people, when someone has reached adversity or tragedy, he has stepped up. Behind the scenes, he is ensuring there is education and support for the children, and he has always looked after the next generation. He never asks for praise, and he never tells anyone about it, but I know it happens, and that is what makes you an enormously beautiful person, whilst also being pretty tough at business. In my opinion, that is your secret sauce.”
RECOGNISED: THE FTMA INDUSTRY ICON AWARD 2026
The Frame and Truss Manufacturers Association (FTMA) held its 2026 National Conference and Trade Expo on the Sunshine Coast in May, and by any measure, it was the most significant gathering in the association’s history. More than 260 delegates and 43 exhibitors from across Australia came together for an event that delivered industry insight, education, networking and, for one person in the room, a moment of overdue recognition.
At the evening awards dinner, FTMA Australia introduced the inaugural FTMA Industry Icon Award, a new honour created to recognise an individual connected to the supplier side of the industry whose leadership, innovation and long-term commitment have shaped the broader sector. The award had actually been intended for introduction in 2024. However, FTMA had a very specific person in mind for the inaugural honour, and they were not prepared to present it without that person in the room.
THAT PERSON WAS PETER TAYLOR
The award, as described during the presentation, was created for exactly this kind of contribution. Nearly 50 years ago, Peter made the decision to establish an independent Australian nail plate company at a critical point in the industry’s evolution. At that time, the nail plate market in Australia was effectively a duopoly. Peter’s entry created genuine competition, and the downstream effects of that single decision have been felt ever since.
Greater competition encouraged continued innovation across manufacturing technology, engineering capability, software, automation, and customer support. It raised the bar for everyone. The benefits have rippled through the industry for decades and continue to shape the way modern frame and truss businesses operate today. As was acknowledged during the presentation, the fact that it took more than 45 years for another company to even attempt entering the nail plate market speaks volumes about just how significant Peter’s original achievement was.
Following the presentation, Peter delivered a brief acceptance speech before the room was treated to a tribute video produced by the Multinail team, a powerful summary of a career that has spanned more than half a century, and a reminder of just how many people, businesses and communities have been touched by what he built.
The cover of this magazine features Peter accepting that award. It is a fitting image, a quiet acknowledgement of a man who has spent five decades doing the work rather than seeking the recognition.
When asked to reflect on what he has built and what he hopes for the future, Peter’s answer carries the same clarity it always has:
“Surround yourself with exceptional people. Treat everyone with respect. Trust your team. Invest in technology. Never sit still. Keep learning and bring your customers along for the journey.”
For more than 50 years, those principles have guided Multinail, from a small nail plate business selling plants by the roadside to a full-service frame and truss technology partner with reach across Australia and beyond. The Industry Icon Award has been a long time coming and has been bestowed on a fitting recipient. For those who have worked alongside Peter Taylor, or built their businesses with his support, it will come as no surprise at all.
