Students benefit from new mowing equipment
Jacobsen, through their Victoria-based dealer Godings, have recently committed to a three-year agreement to provide NMIT with new equipment for use on
the five golf courses managed by the institute. The new machines will also be used for classroom technical training.
Included in the agreement is an annual scholarship for the top performing student to travel to America and take part in Jacobsen’s Future Turf Managers’
Programme (FTM). This programme sees similar top performing students from the major US colleges being invited to Jacobsen’s headquarters in Charlotte,
North Carolina for a week-long training, mentoring and networking event.
NMIT’s Brian Parr contacted the Managing Director of Jacobsen’s APAC division, Alan Prickett, through the mower manufacturer’s Melbourne distributor Godings.
Prickett flew down from Singapore to conduct the negotiations and sign the agreement. As a result, two new machines have been purchased for use on
the golf courses and a walking greens mower donated to NMIT.
Melissa Giffard, Associate Director for the Faculty of Earth Sciences at NMIT said from their perspective, it is a fantastic opportunity for their students
to get experience and exposure to the industry’s cutting edge equipment.
“Also, the opportunity to travel to America and undertake some training and gain some experience at different locations in the USA will be of great benefit.
You can’t buy that sort of opportunity. For us, we are rapt because it just adds value to the students training.”
Jacobsen’s Alan Prickett added that Jacobsen put a lot of time, effort and money into training initiatives all over the world.
“When I began looking after Asia Pacific, one of the things I wanted to roll out were the education programmes we have been running in Europe and the States.
College support programmes are a classic win-win situation. They assist the colleges operationally, but are also good for both our brand exposure and
in allowing student greenkeepers to operate our state-of-the-art mowers, getting comfortable on them while they’re at college.
“We obviously hope that this early exposure to Jacobsen products will give a positive impression that will stay with them through their careers,” Mr Prickett
concluded.
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