ASL Safety & Training Ltd is Ireland’s number one source of workplace safety advice, consultancy and training, providing a broad range of fully certified safety and associated, training plus related management products and services across all industries, state and semi-state organisations. Building Ireland learned more from Managing Director Mark Corcoran.
Based in Arklow, Co Wicklow, ASL Safety & Training Ltd has grown in the short space of five years to become one of the country’s top firms for workplace safety advice, consultancy and training.
Founded by Mark Corcoran and his wife Carmel Lonergan, ASL Safety & Training Ltd supplies safety and environmental consulting, safety training, plant and machinery training, forestry, agricultural and land industry training, e-learning and first aid, fire and medical supplies nationally and to a smaller extent in the U.K. and locally in the Southeast of Ireland.
Building Ireland caught up with Mark recently to learn the ins and outs of his and his wife’s business, which has hit the ground running since being set-up “in the teeth of the recession”, as he likes to put it.
“ASL Safety & Training was established almost five years ago in the teeth of the recession,” said Mark, “the business followed on from another group of companies which we lost when the recession hit in 2008, we are in the safety business almost 25 years at this stage. Like everybody, we’ve had our ups and downs.
“We have a core staff of 11 people with about 20 trainers and consultants working with us from time to time as needed. Currently I am MD of the company.”
The firm’s accreditations include, PHECC, IOSH, IIRSM, SOLAS CSCS/QSCS, SAFEPASS, LANTRA, RTITB, OSHCR, Road Safety Authority and QQI.
With the multiple accreditations, ASL Safety & Training Ltd are able to work across all sectors and also provide an E-Learning platform for clients and the public alike with training available for general safety as well as Health Care and Business and Professional Development Skills, all are CPD approved and you can train online on any device at a time to suit you.
The company also own an online First Aid and Medical Supply Store where clients can go online and buy what they need when they need it with free delivery nationwide. You can book, buy or learn at www.aslsafety.com.
“Our company, as it is now, was founded in 2013 by myself and my wife Carmel Lonergan,” Mark outlined. “It followed a history in this business going back almost 25 years ago which started under the stairs in my mother’s house. Having gone through really tough times during the recession, we decided to re-establish in 2013, thankfully this time around we have the learned experiences from our prior businesses which has helped us to grow our business each year since its foundation.
“We are shortly moving to new premises at KISH Business Park in Arklow, where we will have on-site offices, dedicated training rooms along with a dedicated heavy plant & machinery training site, along with a large indoor multi-use training area for Forklifts, MEWPS, Work At Heights, Confined Spaces and Land, Agri & Forestry Industries.”
From this base ASL Safety & Training Ltd offer their broad range of training, consultancy and supply services.
Business is improving at the moment at the company and since it has been re-established it has managed to grow it each year. In 2018, it will hope to employ two to three more people.
“We lost our entire business (during the downturn) and just managed to hold on to our home,” said Mark. “Hopefully the lessons learned the hard way during that adversity will help us to keep this business on the straight and narrow long term.
“Nowadays we’re about building relationships with clients, keeping their needs fulfilled and making sure everybody is paid! We’ve developed into a ‘one-stop shop’, so hopefully we can give what clients need.”
The company’s clients vary across all sectors as they have a large product offering.
In construction, they’ve worked with Bracegrade Limited for a long time and their main focus is construction & manufacturing and fulfilling the needs of lots of S.M.E’s, which is the real lifeblood of the economy.
Most of the clients at ASL Safety & Training Ltd are long-term and they are progressively winning back clients that they might have lost during the recession.
The company’s training offering is very broad so they end up working with lots of clients across all sectors. They have developed a large offering in the land/agri/forestry/local authority area and have partnered with LANTRA to deliver certified training products to these areas.
So what’s the secret? Why do ASL Safety & Training Ltd’s clients choose them ahead of other competitors?
“I hope people choose us because we give them an excellent service combined with a professional tailored service and broad product/service range that suits the clients’ budget,” the Managing Director stated.
“Everyone is cost conscious these days, we find sitting down with the client and communicating effectively with them helps to ensure their loyalty, having the broad range of services available to our clients in house is a huge help. Investment in technology is assisting us with this as we go.”
When it comes to volunteering, Mark’s two areas are NISO and RNLI. He has been involved in NISO since his early days in safety 25 years ago and has most recently been the Chair of the South East region.
In this role he has been seeking to re-establish NISO in the South East area and working to deliver NISO’s key messages and offerings in the area and also further NISO’s training portfolio.
Outside of that, Mark volunteers as the Lifeboat Press Officer and Community Safety Officer for the RNLI based from Arklow Lifeboat station.
Responsibilities include dealing with all media relating to the operations of the lifeboat service from Arklow, in Mark’s capacity as Community Safety Officer he assists RNLI in its mission of achieving a halving of accidental coastal deaths by 2024. They are doing this by building relationships across the local and wider community and focussing on the causes of drowning and trying to educate the wider community as to the risks posed when you go near the water.
Looking forward to the months ahead, Mark, Carmel and the team at ASL Safety & Training Ltd are looking forward to moving into their brand new premises.
“We are hoping that with the New Year our business will continue to grow and we can continue to work with our existing clients and indeed build and nurture relationships with new clients who we can work with long term.
“Most of all I’m hopeful that our team will continue to be healthy and keep doing what they are doing to help us sustain the business into the future,” Mark concluded.
ASL Safety & Training Ltd
ABEC, Kilbride Industrial Park,
Arklow,
Co. Wicklow
South East Region: 0402-33505
Dublin Region: 01-5312455
Email: [email protected]
Taken from Building Ireland Magazine, February 2018, Vol 4 No 2
