↳ ORIGIN
Wakefield to Barnsley.
Born in Wakefield. Moved down to Weston-super-Mare as a kid. Met my dad properly at 13 and moved back up to Barnsley. That's where I've been since. Married, two boys, the whole thing.
↳ STARTING OUT
Maplin at 16.
First job was Maplin Electronics. Door-to-door sales after that. Then a stint in telecoms customer service. None of it felt like a career, but it taught me how to talk to people and how to handle a no.
↳ INTO ACCESS
2011. Powered access.
I joined the powered access industry in 2011. Team leader within a couple of years. Then they handed me the spider lift niche to grow, which felt like a punishment at the time and turned out to be the best thing that ever happened.
Spider lifts are the awkward members of the access family. Tracked, outriggered, slow to set up, fussy about ground bearing. Most people in the trade leave them alone. I went the other way and learned them properly.
↳ THE WOBBLE
My own company, then no company.
I started my own business in this space. Year one was a buzz. Year two was hard. Year three it went under. That was a serious slap in the face.
Spent the next three years rebuilding. Different role. Different headspace. Worked out what I was actually good at and what I'd been pretending to be good at.
↳ THE BRAND
The Spiderlift Nerd.
Started posting on LinkedIn about the actual work. Specs, site jobs, machine choices, the things I get asked every week. The name was a joke that stuck. People search for it now, which is funny.
Co-founded MewpHub along the way. Launched the newsletter. Then the podcast. Guests from Italy, Australia, the US. People who build, hire, and run these machines for a living.
↳ NOW
Where I am today.
Technical Field Sales Specialist at Wilson Access, part of AFI Rentals Group. 55 spider lifts in the fleet. 15m to 40m. Working with hire desks, site managers, surveyors, and operators across the UK.
If there's a job standard kit can't handle, that's when the phone tends to ring. Site visits, machine selection, the awkward conversations about whether a spider is actually the right answer. Sometimes it isn't, and I'll say so.
That's the whole thing. Spider lifts, properly understood. Making access simple.