Roger Wickens’ family receives his Lifetime Achievement IAPA

The family of Roger Wickens, this year’s recipient of the Lifetime Achievement International Award for Powered Access (IAPA), has been presented with a commemorative glass trophy following the virtual IAPAs ceremony earlier this year.  

Roger Wickens of Loxam Powered Access Division’s Nationwide Platforms, who died in 2019, is the latest recipient of this award in recognition of a lifetime’s service to the industry. He was announced as the winner at the award ceremony, which took place for the first time ever as a virtual event owing to Covid-19 restrictions.

As a result his widow Anne, who accepted the award on behalf of her late husband, was unable to receive the award until this week, when Peter Douglas, CEO & MD of IPAF, hosted a special lunch to hand over the award at Kilworth House in Leicestershire, one of both Anne and Roger’s favourite places.

Peter says: “We were so pleased to be able to announce Roger as the deserved recipient of this Lifetime Achievement IAPA, but it was sad both that Roger himself was not able to receive the award, and that owing to the situation with Covid-19 we weren’t able to invite Anne to join us in person to accept it on his behalf.

“We promised to get together at the first convenient opportunity to do just that, and so it was a pleasure to join Anne and her son Richard for lunch this week along with another former colleague of Roger’s at Nationwide Platforms, Amanda Beckett, who is now IPAF’s Head of Finance. It was lovely to see Anne and spend some time together with her to reminisce about Roger and his long years of service to powered access.

“When Roger died in May 2019, powered access lost an industry veteran and one of life’s true gentlemen. I knew Roger for all of my 27 years with Nationwide and I would simply say he was a very lucky guy: He spent the whole time I knew him in the perfect role – a job he loved in an industry he loved. He had a huge impact not just on Nationwide, but the whole powered access industry. It is a real privilege to have been able to present Anne with this well-deserved award in his honour.”

Acknowledging the award back in March, Anne gave the following note of thanks: “It is a privilege and an honour to accept this award on Roger’s behalf – I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Roger spent his entire working life in the field of engineering, across 30 years or so in the powered access industry.

“To say he loved his work would be an understatement – it was his passion. I was always amazed at the huge amount of technical knowledge and know-how stored in his mind which he readily shared with others. Nothing was ever too much trouble for him.”