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HONDA Australia Motorcycles and Power Equipment is pleased to announce the winner of the 2017 Honda Certified Training Excellence Awards Marine Category: Ian Gifford from Runaway Bay Marine Service in Queensland.
Mr Gifford was selected from over 150 participants in this year’s awards; alongside regional winners Sam Nuttal from Highside Motorcycle, Mowers and Marine (VIC/TAS), Gary Carr from Sports Marine (SA/WA) and William Parker from Cove Marine (NSW/ACT). Each was flown to Melbourne for the presentation at Honda’s national head office on September 15.
Honda’s training manager Lincoln Bowdern announced the awards and noted their importance to both technicians and dealer principals. “This award has been created not only to recognise those technicians who support the Honda Certified Technician Training Program, but also those with an interest to further enhance their skills through ongoing product training,” he said. “We must also thank the dealer principals who recognise the benefits of investing the time in their staff; allowing them to attend training and giving them a great opportunity to raise their skill levels.”
The Honda Certified Technician Training Program is a terrific opportunity for service technicians from Honda Marine dealerships all around Australia to learn specific knowledge about the Honda product and enable them to develop the skills to maintain, diagnose and repair Honda Marine products. Technicians can work towards three levels of competency: Certified, Advanced and Master via a mixture of e-learning and face-to-face classroom training. The 2017 Honda Marine winner Ian Gifford has been in the industry for 16 years, and says he feels an immense sense of achievement at having worked on and with Honda for the past 12 years.
“It brings together everything I’ve worked for, it is one more thing to show our customers that they can trust in our competence and ability to meet their highest expectations of service,” Mr Gifford said. As the national winner, Mr Gifford received $2000 in prizemoney. He and the regional winners were also treated to an ‘exclusive finalists package’ consisting of StarCash cards courtesy of Caltex Australia, trophies, Honda apparel, return flights to Melbourne and accommodation in the CBD, a dinner in honour of the winner, and VIP tickets to the 2017 Supercars round at Sandown International Raceway.
Their VIP Supercars experience included a tour of pit lane and transfers to and from the track each day. “I just want to say it has been a pleasure working with Honda Australia,” Mr Gifford said. “The staff have been very supportive and helpful. “It has also been an absolute pleasure working on such a quality product in general.” The Marine Excellence Awards are held every two years and Honda is looking forward to working with its dealer network to continue the program in 2019.
