Commercial property and facilities management professional Vincent Hickey was elected Chairman of the Irish Property & Facility Management Association at its recent AGM. A chartered surveyor, Mr Hickey is an operations director with global management company Aramark, which acquired Irish Estates four years ago, where he was a director of operations and business development. He has been elected for a one-year term and takes over from outgoing Chairman Sean Aylward, Centre Manager of Nutgrove Shopping Centre at Rathfarnham, Dublin.
In his inaugural address Mr Hickey noted that this year sees the 25th anniversary of the Association, which was formed under the auspices of the Society of Chartered Surveyors in 1989. He announced that at this milestone in the IPFMA’s history, and in line with property and facility management having grown hugely as a profession over the past 25 years, it is now timely for the Association to look at further strategic development. “It is important for us to reflect on our purpose and our structure at this point”, he said, “and we intend to do this over the next couple of months”.
Among the new chairman’s plans is for the IPFMA to invest in technology to facilitate learning over the internet. “It is the IPFMA’s intention to reach out to all members to see how we can best benefit them. We see an investment in technology to facilitate online learning, such as scheduling live recordings of educational seminars on the internet, as one of the major advances in pursuing this goal”, he said.
Mr Hickey also promised continued investment in education, saying that it is paramount to success and growth. He spoke of the growing education and training programmes provided by IPFMA Skillnet, for which the Association has successfully secured government support funding over the last two years.
The IPFMA has been approved for a grant of €98,000 for this year, based on its successful Skillnet training performance during 2012 for which government grants were also received. “This now means we are providing specific training for property and facility managers in areas of professional development, advancement and compliance”, he said.
A Fellow of the IPFMA, Mr Hickey has been a member of the Association since 1996 and served on its board for seven of these years. From an engineering background, he has over 25 years experience in property and facility management, having joined Irish Estates in 1987.
He was appointed a director of the company in 2004 and in 2009, following the takeover of Irish Estates by the global Aramark Group, he became operations director in Aramark Ireland’s property and facilities department. He has been responsible for the management of the major part of the IFSC complex since its inception.
A qualified chartered surveyor, Vincent Hickey is also a member of both the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland and of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Contact: Fiona Barron, IPFMA Chief Executive. Tel: 01 – 644 5520; email: fbarron@ipfma.com ■