Meet Sam Halfpenny. Sam started as an apprentice at ACE Lifts over 11 years ago and is now an experienced Lift Engineer on our projects team. He initially started his learning within the lift industry with panel building, fitting, populating and wiring lift control panels and associated components.
Looking back, he didn’t really decide to do an apprenticeship. In all honesty it just happened because he was interested in learning on the job. The thing Sam enjoys most about his role is being able to put his mark on a job and completing it to the highest possible standard. A typical day will normally include a lift modernisation or a new lift installation.
The biggest challenge in his role are often ones of logistics, moving heavy lift components from one place to another, which can be overcome with good planning and always being health and safety conscious.
The highlight of his career so far has been taking part in a project which included installation of mobile lifts to European standards. This was a steep learning curve for him but provided great job satisfaction when then project had been completed.
He’s gained many qualification and skills during his time at ACE Lifts, such as being first aid trained, becoming a certified fire marshall, PASMA, IPAF, Forklift truck training, risk assessment training, NVQ and many more.
His career aspirations are to go into a more technical field within the lift industry, or something in the way of project management once he’s got a few more years’ experience under his belt.
His advice for anyone looking to join the lift industry would be to go for it. Looking back retrospectively it’s something he wish he’d done sooner. An engineering apprenticeship within the lift industry is probably one of the most diverse apprenticeships you could do due to the vast array of technologies that fall into it.
At ACE Lifts we are passionate about bringing new talent into the industry and each year try to bring new trainees into the business to train up internally. For anyone interested in a career as a lift engineer please send your details to: susan.burns@acelifts.com