05.03.2012

Tindale moves to APS

Snorkel sales and marketing director Richard Tindale is to leave the company having accepted a new position as managing director of UK sales and rental company Access Platform Sales, (APS).

APS, based in Upton, near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire is owned by founder Jim Daintith and is the national distributor for Omme lift, Hinowa and Youngman and a regional dealer for Genie and Niftylift. The company also has a successful used equipment business and owns Height for Hire. The company also has a depot in Wishaw, Glasgow.

Tindale has spent most, if not all of his career in the access industry having worked at Simon, UpRight, Versalift and Gardner Denver, before joining Tanfield in May 2006, following its purchase of UpRight. Tanfield says that it has no immediate plans to replace him.

As part of the appointment Daintith moves to the role of chairman. Speaking of the appointment he said: “Over the past 10 years APS has grown hugely and the company’s success together with the recent addition of Height For Hire and demands of several other successful business interests, means the time is right for me to become chairman and hand over the managing director’s role to somebody who can help us capitalise on the success so far, and develop the business further over coming years. I believe Richard has the necessary skills and experience to do this, and I welcome him to our team.”
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Richard Tindale

Tindale added: “Although sad to leave Tanfield after six years of developing its access business with UpRight and Snorkel, I feel that the time is now right to make the move and help to develop an organisation that I have always held in high regard – and which I now have the opportunity to acquire an interest in.”

“Jim Daintith has created a very impressive full service distribution organisation, which now represents several of the leading manufacturers and which has tremendous potential for future growth. I will bring my experience of business and marketing management to the company and look after day-to-day matters while Jim continues to take an active role in sales development and strategy as well as continuing to look after and develop key accounts.”

“I would also like to thank all my colleagues and distributor partners who have helped me to grow and develop the Snorkel business, since Tanfield first acquired UpRight's powered access operation.”

“All the elements are now in place for Snorkel, a great product range, extensive global network of dedicated distributors, a committed and professional team in sales and product support - and now the potential for rapid growth of production output. I am sure that the company will move forward in leaps and bounds, and that the right people are in place to support this growth.”

The move is officially efective in early April.

Vertikal Comment

This looks like a good move for APS and Tindale, while Snorkel has made significant strides in recent months refining and adding to its management team to a point where his move is not critical, and the timing of the move as good as it can ever be.

As to APS Daintith has been looking to step back from day to day running of the business for some time and appointed Ian James as general manager in 2005. However looking back James would be the first to admit that the significant organisational and administration parts of the role did not fit his best talents- that of sales and marketing management, while Daintith, like many business founders may not have been as ready to hand over as he thought? Add to that the recession which hit companies like APS hard and that attempt never moved on to the next stage with the two parties agreeing to amicably move on in 2009.

This time round it looks very different – the economic cycle is in a better place, Tindale enjoys the administrative, organisational and strategic planning side of the business and with a larger business and seven more years ‘under his belt’ Daintith is probably more than ready to step back from the day to day operations as we enter a new growth period.

Time will tell of course, but this looks like a good move for all concerned.