Key Personnel
The Directors of the Association are members themselves and fulfill honorary roles. They receive no payment for the services they offer to the association.
Directors can only be appointed after a continuous membership tenure with the association of 12 months and must be full time employees of Gold or Silver Member companies to qualify.
The present Directors are as follows:
Brendan Sutton
Chairman
Managing Director of Altura – Height Safety Professionals, a specialist consultancy firm performing design, inspection and compliance review services for height, façade and confined space access solutions.
Michael Biddle
WAHA Director
Director of RIGCOM Pty Ltd. a leading provider of technical services and engineered solutions at height. RIGCOM specialise in the design, installation, and recertification business with a focus on height safety and rope access across a variety of industry sectors including commercial and wind energy.
Simon Pedretti
WAHA Director
Sales Director of SafetyLink Pty Ltd., designers and manufacturers of height safety equipment that is utilised in a wide variety of sectors including construction, wind energy, oil & gas, transportation, and telecommunications industries.
Simon is also a representative on the Standards Australia SF015 Committee.
Mark Anderson
WAHA Director
Director of Anchored Height Safety, Mark brings a wealth of experience from over 20 years in Automotive development, engineering, senior project manager (PMI PMP certified), safety implementation and quality auditing.
Chris Hampton
WAHA Director
General Manager at Spidertech Pty Ltd, Tasmania’s only IRATA International member company operating for over 20 years, specialising in industrial rope access, confined space services and height safety installations. Chris sits on the IRATA Australasia Board, is an IRATA technician, rope access manger and technical authority for Spidertech. Chris is the nominated representative of WAHA Member, IRATA Australasia.
Ashley Campbell
WAHA Director
National Training Manager, Fire and Safety Australia Pty Ltd FSA), a national provider of emergency response services and emergency response & safety training. FSA provides nationally accredited training and is a Registered Training Organisation (No. 22250) with ISO 9001-2015 Quality Certification.
Alistair Merricks
WAHA Director
Director at Australian Industrial Rope Access with 30 + years in the work at height industry. Former director of WAHA and IRATA International, IRATA Australasia’s representative on Standards Australia SF015 Committee, and current IRATA Technician, IRATA Instructor and IRATA Auditor.
In addition to the Directors of the Association, the organisation has two paid positions: the CEO and Secretary. Both these positions are part time, and responsibilities include the organisation of meetings, maintenance of Membership database, website etc, enquiries, articles and ensuring the Directors and Members meet regularly. These two positions are currently filled by:
Scott Barber
Association Chief Executive Officer, Strategic Design Manager
Copywriting + Strategic Marketing
Scott is a qualified Safety Professional with extensive operational, consultancy, engineering, and manufacturing experience in working at height, confined spaces, rope access and rescue applications. As CEO, Scott’s focus is the design of the WAHA engagement and education strategies targeting all our professional members, the broader safety community, and operators at height and in confined space across all industries to best facilitate positive change and ultimately safer workplaces.
Deborah Chick
Association Secretary, Strategic Development and Programs Manager
CEO of Eve Consulting
With over a decade of experience in business management, Deb has extensive experience in IRATA International rope access operations and training and is a former IRATA Health & Safety Committee member. Deb specialises height safety compliance, IRATA and ISO accreditation, the development of internal company policies and procedures, rescue planning, business plans and initiating roadmaps for the continued growth of organisations.