This article is from page 37 of the 2009-02-24 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 37 JPG
CREE man Dan Kelly has had plenty to celebrate in the last few months.
As well as the arrival of his second child just four months ago, he has also been presented with the inaugu- ral Massey Ferguson “Technician of the Year’ award.
Not content with beating off stiff competition here in Ireland, he then went on to represent the country in the
UK and won the overall competition.
The competition was open to all en- gineers working in Massey Ferguson dealerships in the UK and Ireland, regardless of age or experience, and despite working in the area for just two years, Dan proved to be top of aVismeee De alse
Achieving this high accolade was not easy as it required long out-of- hours work and weeks of training in the UK, away from his wife Mary
and children Aishling (20 months) and James (20 weeks).
The 31-year-old took over the fam- ily farm in the past year adding to his PLES ACE AYA
The son of Jim and Ann Kelly, Dan has always been interested in tractors and farmwork.
When he left school, he went to the Athenry Agricultural College, before spending nine years as an apprentice and technician for Aer Atlanta in
NJerveveeyee
He then worked on the A380 for Airbus UK in the south of France.
Two years ago, he joined the MF dealership at Joseph Whelan Trac- tors. This is the second award for the Kilrush company. In 2005, Joseph Whelan (Jnr) won the European salesperson of the year award.
Dealer principal Joe Whelan praised Dan for his hard work and Yo su teaiea0 slo OL
“His previous experience, com- bined with numerous AGCO Acad- emy training modules, has led to Dan emerging as the top agricultural di- agnostic technician he is today,” he said.
“On top of that, Dan experienced a steep learning curve in the workshop with help from the workshop team, sO we were all overjoyed at having won the inaugural MF “Technician of the Year’ Award and we congratulate Dan on his wonderful achievement.”
Massey Ferguson International was also impressed with the west Clare yrarenee
‘The winner demonstrated an ex- ceptional all-round performance, in terms of hard work, attendance, team-working, appropriate use of technical knowledge and contribu- tion to dealer standards,” explained Jason Burbidge, AGCO’s Training and ‘Technical Assistance Group Manager.