PEGASUS Lift Truck Training has been offering fork-lift driver training across the region for close to a quarter of a century, but the past 12 months has seen the business grow and develop in several new directions and with more opportunities.
Started by Giuseppe (known as Pepe) and Dawn Girardi in 1995, the locally based company offers an ongoing professional standard of training and support and courses are designed to meet existing and proposed legislation.
Dawn said: “This year has been a big year for us, we made the decision to really push the company forward and ensure we think out of the box to really meet whatever challenges our customers might face and it has been a great success with a good number of new customers. “Managers of companies who have moved on to other careers have taken us with them and we have seen this several times recently. which shows us we must be doing some thing right. Customer relationships are paramount and we are determined to provide the excellent service they are looking for. Everyone at Pegasus shares the same passion for helping our customers and ongoing feedback is testament to the dedication flexibility quality and consistency of the training programmes.”
Building on the family atmosphere, two Pegasus trainers, Paula and Francis, got married last year, while Northampton Saints co-captain Alex Waller, whose stepfather Karl is a trainer, often visits clients just to say ‘Hi’.
Recently, Pegasus has been recognised by Alpro in Burton Latimer for training one of their employees on numerous trucks. Paul Stafford took the Forklift Driver of the Year title awarded by the Northamptonshire Logistics Forum after competing against other drivers from some of the biggest logistics companies in the county and faced some stiff competition.
Itssar Accredited Pepe heads up the team that can boast many years of experience in delivering training on all types of materials handling equipment, as well as offering advice on health and safety matters. Meanwhile, Dawn has built up a wealth of experience in all areas of fork-lift sales, hire, servicing and finances and has invested time in numerous funded schemes available.
Training is offered on all types of trucks, warehouse equipment, mewps, cranes, lorry mounted fork lifts and pivot steer, manual handling and managers/supervisor courses as well as assessments for new starters and annual checks to make sure everyone is of the same ability.
Courses are mainly tailored to the client’s site and working hours. Travelling to clients’ sites is no problem and Pegasus has recently trained in various towns in the UK, including two Kettering customers asking for training on their sister sites.
This year has also seen a lot of activity through Chamber of Commerce membership, which has proved to be a tremendous support, and many friendships and business relationships have been formed.
“Also, through our membership, we are now talking to two other Chamber members, one which will allow us to offer customers a new product for sale and another which forms an exciting strategy for talks about a new innovation,” said Dawn.
Pepe and Dawn have come to know many of their customers as friends as well as working partners and that trust helps everyone work together to help improve efficiency and reduce the likelihood of accidents – ensuring any investment in specialist courses is money well spent.