08.09.2005

40 years in access

JOHN HOCKING
31.01.1935 TO 01.09.2005
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John Hocking

In another life, John Hocking might have been a diplomat, a politician or even a comedian – such was the variety of talent hidden behind his neatly trimmed beard and a face which could remain quite impassive, even when telling the most outrageous stories of his dealings with anything from EC bureaucrats to those who dared question his judgement on a three-word interpretation of a lengthy, badly worded EC regulation.

In his 70 year life span, John covered a huge amount of ground, most of which, not unnaturally, had strong engineering connections. Needless to say, at St Edwards School in Oxford, he achieved seven ‘A’ Levels which, of course, included Pure Maths, Applied Maths, Physics and Chemistry.

After leaving school - having turned down an offer to read classics at Cambridge University - he took up his National Service, where he was seconded to the Singapore Artillery Regiment, serving for much of that time in Malaya.

Having identified engineering as his prime interest, John was sponsored by Ransomes & Rapier Ltd on a Sandwich Course at North East Essex Technical College, which he successfully completed in 1960, gaining a Higher National Diploma in Mechanical Engineering.

His time in Malaya clearly whetted his appetite for travel and having joined Harper Gilfillan & Co. Ltd as Manager of their Engineering Division, he went out to Singapore where his duties included the completion and commissioning of the Jurong Industrial and the Sungei Payoh Water Treatment Plants.

After six years - with the lust for travel still in his blood – John joined Anthes Equipment Ltd in Toronto, Canada, as Manager of their Distribution Division. This was to be the job which set the seal on a career in powered access, in which John’s contribution, over nearly 40 years, has become legendary. His work with Anthes involved, amongst other things, obtaining Government approval for such things as man lifting winches. Few people in our industry will recall the fact that Anthes was actually one of the first US manufacturers of what we now know as powered access equipment, which our friends in the EC subsequently christened MEWPs.

After nearly eight years with Anthes, John had clearly identified potential in the relatively new powered access industry and in 1976, he took the bit between his teeth and set himself up, in a self employed role, as European Sales and Technical Manager for Mark Industries, California, which was one of the first companies to commence mass production of scissor lifts and self-propelled boom platforms as we know them today.

It was at this time that I first met John and although he and I were then competitors in a tiny industry, we struck up an instant friendship, which lasted for thirty years.

In those early days, John had the onerous task of explaining the eccentricities in Europe to his American masters; a task which he continued to undertake for some thirty years, as the eccentricities of the EC have grown ever stranger and our American friends still, understandably, find most of it stranger than fiction.

John was one of the early members of the International Work Platform Association, which preceded IPAF and under whose auspices the first steps were taken on the creation of a European Standard for our industry, which became widely known as prEN280. John’s early input into that Standard and his continuing discrete efforts to improve EN280 have gone largely unnoticed over the years that this Standard has been under the microscope.

Mark Industries were not kind to John and having done so much work to put the Mark product range on the European market, the franchise was wrested away and given to a third party company under very dubious circumstances.

Never one to be beaten by such devious operators, in 1980 John became European Distribution Manager for Fabtek Inc., California, who had then become a successful manufacturer of MEWPs and once again, he helped that company through TUV approvals and continued his work on the IPAF Technical Committee which, at that time, was involved in BS7171 and continuing work on prEN280.

At a time of intense take-over activity in the USA, John decided, in 1985, to set up his own business, which many of you will remember – Pegasus Platforms – where he created that novel rough terrain work horse – the Pegasus Dumper Mounted Platform – for which he obtained approvals in Germany and Sweden. He then designed the Pegasus AT52T to comply with BS7171.

It is unusual to find a Mechanical Engineer with entrepreneurial flair and marketing skills but John was an unusual man.

Recessionary pressures in the 1990’s caused John to sell his product to Thwaites, where he continued to support the production and product approval until 1992 when he set up Ezeeaxess and Lift Off and then sat down and designed and manufactured small scissor lifts for British Airways and Zeneca.

Ironically, he even designed, manufactured and delivered a number of compact platforms for Somerset House, as well as providing an access consultancy service to the then new Bluewater Shopping Centre Development in Kent.
Powered Access Certification Ltd was set up as a wholly owned subsidiary company of IPAF Ltd in September 1995, with three Technical Officers. Our workload built up quite quickly and when it became clear that this trend was to continue, I persuaded John to join us in November 1996. At that time, Denis Ashworth was our Technical Director and I well recall sitting down one day to write the text for a PAC brochure and adding up the total number of years of experience of our Technical Officers, our Technical Director and myself, which, needless to say, totalled somewhere in excess of 200 years. In 1996 that seemed like a good publicity feature but in today’s politically correct world reference to age and experience is – sadly – often considered irrelevant.

The extent and depth of John’s experience and knowledge of technical aspects of powered access equipment was undoubtedly one of the strongest weapons in PAC’s armoury, whilst his ability to explain the eccentricities of the different European customs, languages and Regulations to American engineers in America, was probably one of his greatest strengths.

His patience and wicked sense of humour – always masked by a deadpan expression -extracted him from as many scrapes as it got him into but his combination of ability, knowledge and fun guaranteed that, no matter how serious the work in hand, it always was fun for all of us who worked with him.

Few will ever fully understand the contribution he has made to our industry in terms of safety and common sense but those who debated with John over such matters as slide bar gates on personnel cages and the need for scissor lift guards - to take just two examples – always appreciated John’s ability to slice through the jargon and come up with a simple solution which enabled business to proceed.

I do not think John had much time for hobbies but gliding was his passion for many years, which I know he passed on to his two sons in Canada. In recent times, John acquired a boat which he was busy restoring, with the intention of launching this summer.

John will be missed by his many friends, business colleagues and all those with whom he argued – so vigorously when necessary – all of whom will wish to express their deepest sympathy to his wife, Jane and his two sons David and Jonathan, his grand-daughter Felicity and Jane’s children, Emma and James.