It’s almost impossible not to like Brendan Quill. Enthusiastic, almost to a fault, the 54-year-old Queenstown realtor, universally known as ‘Quilly’, sits still long enough to talk to PHILIP CHANDLER about his varied life and times, and where he goes to recharge his batteries
Perhaps you know Brendan Quill’s a successful real estate agent and hilarious charity auctioneer with an outsized personality and a wicked laugh you can hear a mile away.
But who knew he was once a Wakatipu High physical education (PE) teacher, a champion cyclist, a jetboat driver and both a TV and radio host?
Growing up in Invercargill, one of five kids, Quill recalls he was always ‘‘playing jokes’’.
‘‘My [school] careers adviser told my parents I’d either be a millionaire or in prison by the age of 40.’’
As a young fellow he’d lie in his grandparents’ Queenstown holiday home, staring at Walter Peak, ‘‘so my parents nicknamed me Walter’’.
At Verdon College he was ‘‘not really academic’’, but very sporty, playing 1st XV rugby and rowing to a national level.
At Otago Uni he did a PE degree and was student president for two years — ‘‘my campaign was, ‘Don’t be silly, vote for Quilly’’’.
Having also qualified as a teacher, he came to Queenstown in 1988 and was a relief PE teacher at Wakatipu High.
Over summer, Quill — a one-time Southland barefoot waterski champ — and his brother Bede ran a waterski business, during when he met great mate, radio broadcaster Craig ‘Ferg’ Ferguson.
He also got a ski instructor’s ticket and even taught in Japan.
Work-wise, he drove a jetboat for the late Dave Black, then drove a number of years for Shaun and Neville Kelly’s then-Kawarau Jet.
One day, ‘‘a couple of girlfriends from university said, ‘we’re going to the Cayman Islands’, and I said, ‘so am I’’’.
There he ran a watersports business and was a scuba-diving guide, and also played rugby for the Cayman Islands when they toured Jamaica.
Quill was lured back to Queenstown to become international sales manager for Shotover Jet, developing markets in Asia, in particular.
He also became a breakfast host on Q92FM alongside ‘Ferg’.
‘‘We became The Two Eggs for Breakfast — it was all about just having laughter at that time of the day.’’
He also became a serious (not really a ‘Quilly’ word) road cyclist, winning the Christchurch to Timaru race and enjoying a top-10 Tour of Southland finish.
He also won a multisport race from Ruapehu to Taupō and was a popular Winter Festival drag race contestant, ‘‘although the lower carriage sometimes got a little bit untidy’’.
Somehow he was also a sidekick for presenter Suzie Aiken on several TV travel shows.
Twenty years ago, Quill helped set up a real estate company, Southern Lakes Real Estate (SLRE), which eventually morphed into Colliers’ Otago franchise.
‘‘I had had some experience with agents and I went, ‘how can I do this differently?’’’
Thanks to a $5000 loan from his parents, he got on to the property ladder with a $109,000 Sunshine Bay home, living only on saveloys to afford it.
For SLRE he handpicked agents, many also with sporting backgrounds.
He created unwanted head lines when, after running out of the office with a banana ‘‘in front of my lower torso’’, a woman complained.
‘‘I got slammed, I got the highest-ever fine given to an agent at the time.
‘‘I went and apologised to all my colleagues in the industry, I said, ‘I think I’ve brought the industry into ill-repute, I certainly didn’t mean to’.
‘‘After that I think I had my best year in real estate, the media [coverage] was fantastic.’’
Over the years, Quill’s be come the resort’s go-to charity auctioneer, having first called an auction when still at uni which saw him even being offered a job at an auctioneering firm.
He does three to four auctions a month and finds it hard to say no when he can help a good cause — ‘‘I’m just a wee bit of lubrication on the chain’’.
One of his regular gigs is MC’ing alongside ‘Ferg’ the big Greenstone Entertainment concerts.
‘‘People ask, ‘what’s the act next year?’
‘‘I answer, ‘well, we’re the first act’.’’
The ultimate glass-half-full person, Quill says he gets his energy from others — ‘‘there’s an energy here you don’t get anywhere else’’.
‘‘If I see someone in the street, it’s nice to leave them better than they were beforehand.’’
He’s also very proud of his wife, Katrina, and their two youngsters, Sylvia and Isabel, who are showing some of their dad’s sporting prowess.
Quill says when his batteries need recharging, he and close mates go crayfishing and diving in Fiordland.
‘‘I’m the great-great-grandson of William Quill, who founded Lake Quill above the Sutherland Falls.
‘‘My daughters are going to get christened in Lake Quill — I want to get a choir to sing, but that’ll probably cost a bit in helicopter time.’’
