Nominations for the 2020 IAPAs are now open, and awards hosts IPAF and Access International are inviting all those interested to submit their applications without delay, and to book their place at the 2020 IPAF Summit & IAPAs, to be hosted at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel in Kensington, London, on 23 April next year.

IPAF is advising members that there has been a revision to the effective date for the ANSI A92 suite of standards, which has now been extended to March 1 2020.

IPAF is pleased to be able to announce Peter Douglas as its new CEO & Managing Director, following a thorough recruitment process that attracted almost 50 applicants from around the world. The new CEO & MD will take up post on 1 December 2019 and will be based in the UK.

Senior representatives of IPAF have given more feedback to the UK All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) of MPs looking into falls from height in the workplace at a recent meeting in Westminster, including a review of IPAF’s accident reporting project.

Andy Studdert, interim CEO and MD of IPAF, has used his closing remarks at the Europlatform 2019 conference in Nice, France, to pay tribute to departed IPAF President Brad Boehler, who stepped down after leaving his role at Skyjack recently.

Norty Turner has been named as the President of IPAF, after Brad Boehler decided to step down having recently left his role at member firm Skyjack. Karin Nars of Dinolift becomes Deputy President and Karel Huijser of JLG is named as Vice President.

Tony Groat, North America Regional Manager for IPAF, has been honored as Person of the Year at the ALH Awards 2019 in San Diego, California, for his work to promote MEWP safety and training and in developing new US and Canadian standards.

More than 50 delegates attended the first ever IPAF workshop on training and safety standards to be held in Oman, answering demand in the country to establish robust standards to improve operator safety and technical inspections of MEWP machines.

More than 300 delegates attended the IPAF Asia Conference and Showcase, held for the second time in Hangzhou, capital of China’s Zhejiang province, on 17 July 2019.

After several months of development and fine-tuning, IPAF has announced it is now ready for “controlled trials” of its PAL+ advanced operator assessment in a virtual reality (VR) environment using MEWP simulators at some members’ training centres.