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27/01/25 - We sat down with Karen O'Neill to learn about her journey in the access industry and how it led her to become PASMA’s head of training administration and delivery. Karen’s career in the access industry began in 1999 when she joined Turner Access in an administrative role within the company’s training department. At the time, Turner was a PASMA member that manufactured, hired out, sold and delivered training on mobile access towers. It was here that Karen first met some of the colleagues she’d later work alongside at PASMA, including boss Peter Bennett OBE and then-training instructor Chris Smith. Her role at Turner involved managing the paperwork for courses, ensuring everything was ready for the instructor and greeting delegates as they arrived. Back then, PASMA hadn’t started admitting training members yet, so most companies had their own training programmes for users, while PASMA training focused on instructors. Karen’s administrative responsibilities gave her first-hand exposure to industry standards, while the open-plan office provided the ideal learning environment for her to soak in her colleagues' knowledge. She also found unexpected opportunities to learn outside the office. “I smoked at the time, and I’d chat with the delivery guys outside. They shared stories about what customers were asking for and how towers were being used,” she laughs. She also carpooled with the yard supervisor, a former colleague, and picked up valuable insights from their daily conversations. “He’d tell me how deliveries were going and explain things like why certain parts of the tower were so important. It helped me understand the terminology and proper use of the equipment.”

Becoming an instructor

As the need for a new training instructor at Turner’s came up, Karen saw an opportunity to step into a new role. “I’d already learned the theory and admin side of training, so I thought, ‘Why not give it a go?’” she says. “When I started, I didn’t know much about the industry,” Karen admits. “It was very male dominated back then, which made me a little nervous at first, but I quickly gained confidence interacting with the training delegates.” Karen became one of the first PASMA-trained female instructors, a role she found rewarding because it allowed her to directly teach delegates and pass on her knowledge. “Sometimes, delegates were surprised to see a woman leading the session,” she recalls. “But I loved proving myself and showing them I knew what I was doing.” Her favourite part of the job was seeing delegates leave with newfound knowledge and confidence. “I’d always tell them, ‘It’s not your boss on that platform—it’s you. My job today is to make sure you’re safe.’” Karen’s practical, no-nonsense teaching style earned her respect, even from the occasional sceptical delegate.

Life as an auditor

Karen’s career took another turn when Peter Bennett OBE left Turner to start his own company, providing training and auditing services for PASMA, which didn’t offer them directly at the time. Karen joined him as both an administrator and a PASMA-accredited auditor, travelling across the UK to ensure training centres met safety standards and membership criteria. “Back then, auditing was very manual,” she explains. “You’d spend a whole day going through paperwork, making sure everything was in order.” Her experience as an instructor gave her an edge as an auditor. “Having been on the training side, I knew what to look for and could relate to the challenges instructors faced,” she says. This dual role eventually led her to become PASMA’s first full-time employee when Peter assumed the role of managing director at the association. Working out of his garage at first, Karen took the first steps in setting up PASMA’s member services department, digitising processes and creating the foundation for the association’s modern systems. “In the beginning, everything was on paper—application forms, course records, you name it,” she remembers. “We had to figure out how to streamline it all and make it work.” She also had a hand in finding a headquarters for PASMA in the west end of Glasgow.

Transforming training with technology

Karen’s instructor experience proved invaluable later on, in the late 2010s, when specifying requirements for PASMA’s new online registration system (ORS). “Registering delegates and issuing cards was a messy, manual process,” she explains. “Members had to physically order paperwork, and instructors could only access courses through their training centre.” Drawing on her practical knowledge, Karen helped specify features that made the ORS user-friendly and efficient. “We added prerequisites for advanced courses, so you couldn’t accidentally register someone for towers on stairs without them having done Towers for Users first,” she says. “It also flags duplicates and lets instructors and members access everything they need in one place.” Karen’s understanding of training logistics was essential in creating a system that worked for members, instructors and PASMA staff alike. “It wasn’t just about making things easier for us—it had to work for them too,” she says.

Leading training at PASMA

Today, Karen heads up PASMA’s training administration and delivery, overseeing instructor qualifications, CPD and course materials. She played a key role in revising PASMA’s Towers for Users and Towers for Managers courses and introducing new training on advanced configurations. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Karen led PASMA’s pivot to e-learning, implementing a learning management system and ensuring it was integrated with the ORS. “We’d dabbled in e-learning before, but the pandemic forced us to scramble to get everything ready,” she says. Delegates could complete theory training online while still leaving room for practical sessions once restrictions eased. Karen’s focus on innovation doesn’t stop there. She’s exploring gamification and virtual reality (VR) to enhance training. “VR lets delegates practice tower assembly in a safe, controlled environment,” she explains. “It’s great for managers or anyone who doesn’t handle towers every day.” Not long before the pandemic, she collaborated with a game design student to develop a PC game designed to teach tower assembly. “The idea was to make learning fun and interactive,” she says. “Players could build and dismantle towers in a virtual world, gaining points for accuracy and safety.” This project served as the inspiration for PASMA’s early VR scenarios. Karen’s vision is to keep PASMA training at the forefront of industry needs. “We’re always looking for ways to improve,” she says. “At the end of the day, it’s about making sure everyone who works at height using mobile access towers can do so safely and confidently.”