Narembeen tech wins AFGRI Top Tech 2022

AFGRI Equipment – Narembeen service technician Daniel de Gouveia has been awarded AFGRI Top Technician of the Year for 2022.

The award was presented at the company’s annual awards night, held at Optus Stadium this month. This year’s award saw a different winner selection process with all AFGRI service technicians encouraged to take part in a skills-based competition, rather than metrics to choose the eventual winner. The first assessment was an open book written test where technicians had access to all tools and documentation available to them such as John Deere Service ADVISOR™. From the results of the first assessment, the group was whittled down to the top twelve service technicians. This group moved on to the second round of testing; a closed book written assessment consisting of a mixture of general and specialist knowledge which led to the selection of the top eight. Held at our Northam branch, the top eight technicians then took part in the final round of testing, which featured a combination on theoretical and practical assessments on four key classes of equipment – Tractors, Harvesters, Sprayers & Precision Ag technology. After the testing was completed, the top eight’s results were graded by a panel consisting out of AFGRI group service manager Charles van Loggerenberg and our team of technical advisors. A special mention to AFGRI technical advisor - tractors Gert Grobler for his work in setting up the assessments. Daniel took out what was a very close competition, with Northam’s Michael Currell and Declan Bell finishing in 2nd and 3rd place respectively. AFGRI Equipment – Narembeen branch manager Craig Roissetter said it was fantastic to see Daniel recognised for the “awesome work” he does for the branch. “It is a real pleasure to work with someone like Daniel with such a great attitude and work ethic,” Craig said. “AFGRI Equipment - Narembeen are very proud to have him as part of our team assisting our customers.” Charles said the technicians who took part in the competition saw it as a new challenge and something to really test the skills they had collected. “We had fantastic engagement from our technicians who took part in this first year of the skills-based award,” he said. “It presented an opportunity for our techs to put their skills to the test against their colleagues from across WA. “As a technician you are always learning, it was very pleasing to hear the number of positive comments we received on the benefits of challenging your knowledge. “It also produced a fantastic environment for networking and knowledge sharing with other techs from around the state.” AFGRI Equipment would like to congratulate Daniel for winning this year’s award and thank all our service technicians who participated. We look forward to continuing to build on the competition next year and in the years to come.