People

• UpRight Powered Access has appointed ex-Snorkel salesman Poh Boon (‘PB') Lim (pictured) as its new sales and distribution manager for Asia Pacific. He takes over responsibility for the territory from Martin Connolly, who remains UpRight's international sales and dealer development manager for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Mr Lim, who spent the past four years with Snorkel International, will manage the operations from UpRight's China office. The appointment sales Mr Lim return to UpRight – he first joined the company in 1996 as sales manager for Asia Pacific, before leaving in 2002.

• Richard Saunders (pictured) has been appointed managing director of UK access rental company AFI Uplift. He has over 20 years experience in the powered access industry and been a regional director, operations director and general manager at AFI. David Shipman, previous managing director, remain company chairman.

• On 1 December 2007 Hans-Hasso Kersten was appointed one of two executive directors at Mateco, the Stuttgart, Germany based access rental company. Working alongside long-time Mateco chairman Wolfgang Roth, Mr Kersten's primary responsibility will be as financial controller. Mr Roth will take responsibility for marketing, sales and fleet procurement. Before joining Mateco, Mr Kersten was a chief financial officer in the logistics industry for 15 years.

• Steve Citron has been named as the director of business development at MEC Aerial Platforms. A 26-year veteran of the industry, he comes to the company after holding positions with Genie Industries and Bil-Jax.

• Power Climber, the suspended platform division of SafeWorks, LLC, has appointed Eric Thormann as its managing director. Mr Thormann replaces Germain Vanhulle, general manager of Power Climber for more than 24 years, who is to retire this year. Thormann comes to Power Climber from air conditioning specialist Trane Europe, where he was vice president after sales service. He also has experience at Carrier Corp, Volvo and Union Carbide.

• Steve Shaughnessy (pictured) has joined Loxam Access in the UK as its managing director, having left A-Plant in the UK where he was managing director of the Specialist Products business, which included powered access.

Mr Shaughnessy has decades of experience in managing equipment rental companies. For almost ten years he led family-owned Shaughnessy Crane Services in the US, which was acquired by NES Rentals, one of the biggest US rental companies. At NES he rose to become chief operating officer before leaving the US to join A-Plant in the UK.