Tragedy ends family's shared business dream

When Blenheim honeymooner Rebecca Crawley was killed in Fiji, it ended her dream to work in the American corporate world on a special project.

It was special because it involved an innovation her father, Mark, has filed patents on, and she would have worked alongside him with globally recognised brands such as McDonald's, Disney and Universal Studios.

It was a dream her new husband, Hayden Stockwell, shared, and the plan was to move to North America to make it a reality.

The dream was shattered when the couple, married just six days, were snorkelling at a Fijian resort and a boat ran into Rebecca, killing her.

That was four weeks ago, and friends and family have struggled to come to terms with her death, holding on to the memory of a vivacious young woman. A photograph published in newspapers and on website Forever26 dedicated to her memory shows her at her wedding laughing and reaching out. She is talking to a child not seen in the photo, but it shows her happiness and excitement.

"Rebecca lit up any room anywhere. Her laughter and her energy would utterly fill that room," Mark said.

That is the Rebecca most people knew, but there was another _ a "switched-on" businesswoman, as Hayden describes her. She had completed a Bachelor of Commerce in international marketing and management at Canterbury University.

Businessman and Canterbury University marketing lecturer Bob Peffers said from the United States that she was creative and had a strong business focus.

"It's a combination I have seen only rarely in students, especially in New Zealand. She had the potential to take a real leadership role," he said. "Of the students that I see coming out of higher education, she had the highest potential to move straight up the ladder."

In two gap years during her university time she had worked with her father at Coca-Cola in Atlanta and with Bacardi Martini in Britain.

"She was young _ she was 21, 22 _ but she blew everybody away everywhere she went," said Mark.

Harry Epstein, innovation vice- president for Havi Global Solutions in the US, a major supplier of products and services to McDonald's, said: "Rebecca had a lot of good energy. She had a lot of passion for the business and the concept and what her role was going to be. She was going to be a great part of the team."

Mark, who describes himself as an over-qualified Cantabrian, has three university degrees in engineering and works in innovative design. The inventor-entrepreneur has several patents and loves a challenge.

Four years ago he was set one when he was at the Paysanne restaurant in Blenheim with his three children. Daughter Nichola was waitressing, but had the night off, and introduced him to the other waitresses.

"They asked me if I could invent a drinking straw to stop it floating up and trying to fall out of a carbonated drink. It was all a lot of fun and everybody laughed about it," he said.

It got him thinking, and that bit of fun has led to something more serious.

Later, Mark, who was then based in Britain, flew home via Asia to attend his daughter's graduation in Christchurch. At a business meeting in Seoul, a South Korean businessman made a comment about a problem with making a special novelty straw.

"That night in my hotel room thinking about how to solve that problem led to me coming up with this new process," he said. "The process allows us to take an existing tube-based product, such as a pen, drinking straw or toothpaste tube, and at very high speed and with minimal cost we can three-dimensionally reform it into an item of high promotional value.

"For example, we can turn a drinking straw into a children's toy."

The invention has led to patents being filed internationally. "It is now tied up with McDonald's Corporation and will ultimately be tied up with virtually every brand, particularly Disney, Universal Studios, the alcohol brands, Hasbro and Mattel _ absolutely everybody."

Harry Epstein, who is on the McDonald's innovation committee, said the technology Mark had invented could be used in a lot of marketing and toy applications. "It's just a matter of imagination and coming up with ideas that meet needs," he said.

The dream was for Rebecca and Hayden to join Mark at Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario, Canada, where he is now based.

Rebecca was to work with her father in progressing a business plan for the innovation.
"Her job in the first year would have been to work with a mutual friend who is a former Coca-Cola corporate executive to complete the marketing plans that are required to present the products we can derive out of our processes to all major brands," said Mark.

Hayden, a builder, said it was his wife's dream. "No matter what, that was going to be the plan." They had hoped to go next year, depending on finance being secured for the business.

"She loved her dad," said Mark. "We had an amazing bond. She loved what I did and she was my greatest supporter. Rebecca's dream was to run the corporation, but she had to start out as a vice-president."

Now he will have to do it without her.

With permission of the Press.