32nd EBA Indigenous in Business Winner - Ray Pratt - Dice
Ray Pratt is the founder and Director of Dice Australia, a proud Western Arrernte man from Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Inspired by his father to work hard and give back, Ray is passionate about his company engaging, mentoring, and supporting local, regional, and national Indigenous businesses in a bid to facilitate better living for all Australians. Dice Australia has 3 core competencies; electrical, smart energy and construction. Ray is the incredibly well deserving winner of our 32nd annual Indigenous in Business Award.
Ray Pratt pictured with Joseph Assaf AO, Founder and Chairman of the EBA
Q: What inspired Ray to start his business?
A: Ray Pratt credits a strong work ethic instilled by his father for the success he enjoys today. Traveling to the Tiwi Islands from Darwin every school holiday from the age of 10 to help his dad with his electrical contracting business, Ray developed a passion for all things electrical. He joined his father as an apprentice and spent his teen years mastering his trade and nurturing a hunger to improve. It was following a stint travelling around Australia and working with Bechtel that Raymond Pratt decided to go out on his own.
Q: What are some of the challenges Ray faced when he starting his business?
A: Dice started out as an electrical company in 2004. At 23 years old, Ray faced struggles in the early beginnings of the company, starting out with not a lot of money. He used his redundancy pay that he received from his previous job at a gas plant in order to afford to buy an ‘84 Nissan Urvan, some tools and an ad in the local paper. His office was a bedroom in his house.
Within the first year, he was able to hire an apprentice and an electrician. The turning point for Ray was around the third year of business, where he had 10 employees on the books. This kept growing and by 2010, Dice had around 35 employees. Over the last few years, the company has done some significant expansion and currently has over 60 full-time employees.
Ray describes some of the hardships that Dice have faced early on in the business. Dice very nearly went out of business several times due to clients failing to pay large sums of money for the services provided. Ray states that “learning that lesson earlier helped us figure out how to get smarter in business and not allow that to happen again”.
Q: What is DICE’s mission?
A: Ray describes Dice as a diverse company. Their mission is to deliver smart, sustainable energy infrastructure to shape Australia. “We are here to power communities and empower people”. A significant amount of the work that Dice carries out takes place in regional areas. Ray and the team at Dice are proud of the difference they can make in these remote communities, delivering solar and battery storage or affordable and reliable energy for people who have previously not been able to access this. Dice currently have a team around 8 hours out of Darwin who are carrying out these life changing projects to regional communities.
They also have a construction team working for the Northern Territory Government around 7 hours out of Darwin to refurbish homes and help establish market gardens for a handful of communities. This wasn’t just about creating healthy food for the people in these areas, it was about creating an economy in the bush. They also helped establish “make to take” agreements with store owners to help the local community in entering the economy.
“I’m super proud of my team for the work they do, often delivering projects which have a life changing effect”
Ray Pratt pictured with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and The Hon. Ken Wyatt, Minister for Indigenous Australians
Q: What work does DICE do to give back to the community?
A: Dice aim to employ as many Indigenous people as possible in their electrical team. They are proud of their 6 Indigenous apprentices and 4 Indigenous electricians. Their aim now is to have their Indigenous employees making key decisions within the business, which Ray says is one of the keys to the success of the business. Dice are proud of their humble beginnings, starting off doing small projects for anyone. While they still take on smaller projects, Dice have experienced significant growth since starting their business, now carrying out multi-million dollar projects and forecasts triple digit growth over the next year
In his winner’s acceptance speech, Ray states that he is “a product of our multicultural society. I am proud to be Chinese, Timorese, Portuguese and on a night like tonight, I am especially proud of my Western Arrernte heritage and I am proud to stand here and call myself a proud Aboriginal man.”
