The new future management team of ESTA’s planned European Crane Operators Licence (ECOL) project is almost complete as the project nears its formal launch early this year.
The final meeting of the current ECOL Working Group was hosted by crane company BMS in Copenhagen, Denmark at the end of January.
The voluntary group, chaired by ESTA Director Ton Klijn, has been responsible for driving the project from its inception. It will now be superceded by the ECOL Foundation comprising a tri=partite permanent management structure featuring a Supervisory Board, a Management Board and an Expert Board.
The Supervisory Board will be chaired by Ton Klijn who will be joined by trade union representative René van der Steen from Het Zwarte Corps in the Netherlands and Steve Filipov from Terex Demag.
Confirmed members of the Expert Board to date are:
Fraser Cocks – BCACS, Canada
Kim Hvolbøl – DKF, Denmark
Erik Kroes – Mammoet, Netherlands
Pia Metsola – INFRA, Finland
Lion Verhagen – VVT , Netherlands
Paul Zepf – VDMA, Germany
Norbert van Schaik – Siemens-Gamesa, Germany
Kim Poulsen – EUC – Lillebǣlt, Denmark
Members of the Management Board are expected to be announced soon.
Meanwhile, recognition of the potential value of ECOL is also gaining ground. The Copenhagen meeting heard that Sarens Belgium have applied to qualify their training facility under ECOL and Ton Klijn was asked to present the ECOL system to an internal meeting of lifting experts from the oil and gas giant ExxonMobil.
Klijn also announced that ECOL has also started the process of qualifying the ECOL Foundation under ISO9001.