Weather Guard Lightning Tech

3S Lift Adds a Rescue Stretcher to Climb Auto System

Giovan Scialdone, president of 3S Lift Americas, joins to discuss 30,000 Climb Auto System installs and a new lift-mounted rescue stretcher.

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Allen Hall: Gio, welcome back to the program.

Gio Scialdone: Hey, thanks, Allen.

Allen Hall: So a lot’s happened over the past year since we last spoke with you at 3S Lift. Yeah. And there’s all kinds of new technology and improvements and the- The expansion of the Climb Auto system in the United States is remarkable. Yeah. How many systems do you have installed in North America?

Gio Scialdone: Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, it’s, it’s… The, the pride that we take in, in those numbers are, are serious. We, we feel, uh, a great responsibility to help technicians, to help our customers operate more, uh, more efficiently. We have 30,000 installed.

Allen Hall: Wow.

Gio Scialdone: So yeah, last year was a busy year. We installed close to 8,000, uh, in North America, so a bit in Canada as well.

Um, [00:01:00] yeah, it’s… And, you know, before we get into some more numbers too, a funny story for you, a Massachusetts native- Right … or lived in Massachusetts- Long time … for a period of time. Uh, Hoosac Wind Farm, you know the Hoosac Wind Farm. Oh, yeah, yeah,

Allen Hall: I can see it out my front door.

Gio Scialdone: This is what’s great about this industry and being at this conference.

Um, I ran into… At, at one point in time working for GE a long time ago, I was a site construction manager for Hoosac. I ran into my EHS safety manager, who I haven’t seen in 14 years-

Allen Hall: Wow …

Gio Scialdone: uh, who now works for another prominent, uh, company, uh, in the industry, and, uh, she remembered the name of my dog that- Really?

I used to take to the site as a- Oh,

Allen Hall: wow.

Gio Scialdone: So, uh, you know, it’s good to be here, see you, and see, see, you know, lots of former colleagues, so,

Allen Hall: you know. Well, it’s a small world in wind.

Gio Scialdone: It’s a very small world. And, you know, we’re, we’re a company that, um, you know, again, we, we, we have a unique product, and there, there are some other companies that are, um, also coming out with a product quite similar, and we, [00:02:00] we appreciate that competition.

Sure. In fact, I think, you know, we spend a lot of our time trying to, uh, sell our customers on the value that the ClimbAuto system is a need and not a nice to have, and I think having some competition with a similar ladder access product further, uh, maybe pushes that point to, to, to be true. So, um, you know, it’s good to be here and see some expansion in, in our little, uh, you know, ladder lift space.

Allen Hall: Well, I think it shows the work that 3S has done to demonstrate the value of that system. I remember several years ago, I think when I first talked to you, there wasn’t a lot of adoption, and you were… And the operators were thinking, “Do I really need this?” But the reality was that the technicians loved it.

They improved performance. They had technicians using those towers and wanted to work on those specific towers. Yeah. And, and then, uh, just kind of the flood happened. It, it was everybody was testing the [00:03:00] waters. You were basically installing test systems- Yeah … or sort of sample system to try it. Yeah.

Everybody loved it, and then boom, you’re up to 30,000 units.

Gio Scialdone: I, I think, I think a part of that too to add on is you, you have to have a quality product.

Allen Hall: Oh, sure. It has to work. For, for… It has to work. Right.

Gio Scialdone: That’s the most important thing. Yeah. Um- The th- the, the, the value and the function in theory makes sense to lots of people, but does it work and is it reliable?

And I think having been here nine years and, and, you know, the first three years we only had 500 units installed. Yeah. So it’s really the last three or four years that have expanded our, our installation base. And I think a lot of that is, you know, thank, you know, we’ve got a great team behind it. You know, we’ve got 70 technicians, and we’ve got a sales team, and an engineering team, and, um, you know, a project management team.

So we, we’ve, we’ve staffed up as, as you need to. But the product we’ve, we, we really believe has, um, you know, been our best [00:04:00] salesperson. You know, it takes some service. That’s one thing I wanted to, to let you know, too. You know, in the early days, we- a lot of our customers were servicing our lifts. Sure.

Right, yeah. And we still, um, uh, promote that if they would like to. Uh, annual inspection, you know, 30 minutes a year, um, that kind of pre-use inspection of one or two minutes before you ride it is- Sure … is, is, uh- Yeah, yeah … required. But now we’ve got a team of 20 to 25 technicians who their only job is to go around and, and service these lifts.

So- Wow … we’re proud now that, you know, the oldest lifts are nine years. Oh, wow. And they’re still working very, very well as designed. You know, no, no major correctives, no motor replacements. So, you know, stand behind the product and, and, you know, service it, and servicing our customers is really what we’re, we’re proud to, to, to show.

Allen Hall: Well, that was always the hard part early on. Um, my recollection was I could install this system, and yes, I could help my technicians, but am I fixing it, replacing it? The, the, the quality was the question mark at the moment.

Gio Scialdone: Yeah.

Allen Hall: [00:05:00] But you’ve really hammered that, and I think 3S has done a good job of mainta- maintenance and inspections and just delivering a quality product.

That’s why I think you’ve seen the growth as rapidly as you have, and the price point’s right, too.

Gio Scialdone: The price point has to be right. I think, you know, um, we’ve– we, we are offering some additional, let’s call them, like, support services. So we’ve got an online store where you can come and buy spare parts. You can buy every spare part that you need on our online stor...