IPAF Campaign Aimed to Attract ‘Fresh Talent' to Industry

A series of initiatives aim to draw young talent into the access industry and alleviate an acute shortage of expertise in the coming years. A sub-group led by Roger Bowden of Niftylift is developing an IPAF engineering apprenticeship designed to lead to a “technician” level qualification.

“The powered access industry is itself young and represents a great career path for young people • all too often they are unaware of the job opportunities in this growth business,” said Tim Whiteman, IPAF managing director.

IPAF is also launching the Job Access challenge among colleges in Europe. The not-for-profit trade federation is looking for manufacturers and rental companies to sponsor 18-year-olds from technical high schools who will be trained to operate access platforms safely and through that process, to obtain a PAL Card (Powered Access License) as proof of training. Job Access will culminate with a competition on the IPAF stand at the INTERMAT 2009 show, where teams of young people will have to complete various tasks using access platforms safely.

“Young people represent the future, and the access industry can only benefit and continue to flourish if there is a ready pool of fresh talent in disciplines like engineering and maintenance,” said Isabelle Laplume of IPAF-France, who is organizing Job Access. “We look forward to working with exhibitors and sponsors on this exciting project.”

IPAF will give a 30-minute presentation on Job Access at the APEX Conference on the morning of Sept. 17.

IPAF is holding several meetings during APEX, including IPAF Manufacturer's Technical Committee Meeting, IPAF Mast Climbing Work Platform (International) Committee Meeting, and the IPAF European Rental Forum.

IPAF is at stand 1145 in the Maastricht Exhibition and Congress Centre (MECC).

The second Europlatform conference, which IPAF is jointly organizing with Access International, is taking place Sept. 16, the day before the start of APEX, at the Grand Hotel de l'Empereur just opposite Maastricht's main railway station.

The conference will focus the theme of “the access rental company of the future” and cover topics such as ethics, fleet management, preventive maintenance and telematics/remote systems. There will be an evening reception after the conference closes.

The conference program and booking details are at www.europlatform.info.

More information is at www.ipaf.org/events.