ESTA Director Ton Klijn has announced that he is to retire at the end of June. He will be succeeded by ESTA Policy Officer Miguel Florez de la Colina.
Ton Klijn has been active in the heavy lifting and transport industry since 1977, initially with Mammoet and later joining Wagenborg Nedlift where he was Managing Director for 14 years until 2017. At the same time he was active in ESTA, was a board member of the Dutch association VVT, and chaired the supervisory board of Aboma, a Dutch safety and certification company, before becoming ESTA Director in 2017.
Well respected as a committed and knowledgeable industry leader, Klijn is credited with raising ESTA’s profile and membership and greatly increasing the organisation’s influence in Brussels.
That influence could – if all goes according to plan – result in the passing of two major pieces of European legislation that would greatly benefit the heavy lifting and abnormal transport inspectors – the Military Mobility package and the revisions to the Weights and Dimensions Directive. Both contain a series of measures that ESTA has supported for decades such as Europe-wide heavy transport corridors and common, electronic permitting systems.
Born in Madrid, Miguel Florez de la Colina spent 15 years working for Mammoet. From 2014, he worked for Siladen Solutions who have acted as agents for Wagenborg Nedlift, Roll-Lift and Hareket, amongst others. He also teaches construction and lifting to civil engineering students at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid where he himself studied, a role that he enjoys and that he will retain part-time after he joins ESTA.
He said:
“Ton will be a very hard act to follow but I am delighted to be working with ESTA and to help continue its development. From a personal viewpoint, I strongly support ESTA’s core values of European cooperation and harmonisation of standards.”
“ESTA is committed to an international viewpoint from a strictly practical level and thanks to Ton’s influence and hard work is in the process of transforming itself into a bigger and more influential organisation.”
“Industry and society are in a huge moment of change, both in terms of technology and politics, and ESTA will need to respond to those challenges on behalf of our members.”
