I am honored and happy to be your 2011 EGSA President.
EGSA continues to grow in membership, convention attendance and relevance as more people become involved. And EGSA continues to evolve to reach out to people and businesses outside of our immediate generator industry. In the past, EGSA focused on issues that impacted our membership directly but as we have introduced programs like Generator Technician Certification, we have come to the point where property managers, electrical engineers, fire marshals, electrical inspectors, data center managers and other stakeholders that maintain onsite power assets need to know and understand who EGSA is and what we represent.
As I travel in the mid-Atlantic region during my daily business dealings, I realize that few if any people outside of our industry have heard of EGSA. I gave a presentation a few years ago as the EGSA representative to a group of FEMA directors and only one out of fifteen or so had heard or knew of EGSA. This I think is the main reason the EGSA Board of Directors agreed to establish a full-time marketing position two years ago.
As one example, it will be hard for the Technician Certification Program to get full traction until outside stakeholders recognize the value of employing a technician certified by a nationally recognized independent organization such as EGSA. We will know we have been successful when inspectors, electrical engineers and others start asking for firms that utilize EGSA certified technicians.
Contract officers on large government contracts will find that this solves a big problem – especially if they manage multiple gensets from multiple manufacturers. Many competent dealers have bid on service contracts only to find another company bidding at half the price of everyone else. The other dealers know that the very low priced company does not have trained, qualified people, but there is no objective way for the contract officer to know any better – except by asking for technicians with specific qualifications.
The EGSA Technician Certification Program is the answer. Every other skilled trade – electrical, plumbing, HVAC, etc. – has licensing requirements so that end-users can be assured of competent technicians and mechanics. Thanks to EGSA, our industry is now moving in that direction as well – certification provides a national standard way for end-users (and generator dealers) to know the level of competence of a technician in addition to manufacturer/model specific certification.
Getting the Certification Program accepted as an industry standard (along with UL listing of equipment) would go a long way in assuring excellence in our industry over the life of the products. This could only be good for everyone involved in our industry and help expand the awareness of onsite power to even more end-users and more markets.
On a final note, it is extremely important that the EGSA membership not rely solely on our marketing person to get the word out about EGSA and the Technician Certification Program. Use every opportunity to tell the EGSA story to every appropriate manager you encounter during your normal business routine, whether it be electrical engineers, operations managers of facilities, inspectors and anyone else that could have an impact on onsite power applications.
