Ton Klijn to step down as ESTA director

The long-serving director of the European association of abnormal road transport and mobile cranes (ESTA), Ton Klijn, announced on 16 April his retirement at the end of June. His successor is Miguel Florez de la Colina, ESTA policy officer .

Klijn started in the heavy lifting and transport industry in 1977, first at Mammoet and then at fellow Dutch company Wagenborg Nedlift. He was managing director fthere or 14 years until 2017. At that time he was already active in ESTA, was a board member of the Dutch association VVT, and chaired the supervisory board of Dutch safety and certification company Aboma. He started as ESTA director in 2017.

Ton Klijn, ESTA director retiring at the end of June

Klijn’s achievements include raising ESTA’s profile, strengthening its membership and ramping up the association’s influence at the European Parliament in Brussels. If things go to plan, that influence could result in two pieces of European legislation benefiting the heavy lifting and abnormal road transport sectors, namely the Military Mobility package and the revisions to the Weights and Dimensions Directive.

Both include measures ESTA supported, so far with deferred success, including Europe-wide heavy transport corridors and common, electronic permitting systems.

In succession

Like Klijn, Madrid-born Miguel Florez de la Colina worked at Mammoet. He was there for 15 years and then from 2014 he worked for Siladen Solutions, an agent for Wagenborg Nedlift, Roll-Lift and Hareket.

He also teaches construction and lifting to civil engineering students at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid where he also studied.

Commenting on his new role, 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 co-operation 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,” he concluded.