Scott Owyen is the director of training for Genie. His career at Genie spans nearly four decades, where he has worked in manufacturing, product management, sales, and, for the last 15 years, training.

Scott is responsible for overseeing the development of Genie Lift Pro operator training and Train-the-Trainer courses, to which he applied adult learning theories to make the material engaging and interactive. Since launching Genie’s online training courses, Scott and his team have been directly responsible for training more than 120,000 people around the world.

Always one looking for ways to make the industry safer, several years ago Scott embarked on a project to develop a quality Virtual Reality training tool. Launched earlier this year, Genie VR training complements classroom and hands-on training and gives operators the chance to learn how to avoid real-world MEWP operational hazards from the safety of a virtual world.

“Technology is expanding our ability to learn and make meaningful connections that can keep operators safer on the jobsite. Imagine the ability to make a mistake and learn from mistakes that can cause a MEWP accident, without getting hurt. Virtual reality makes this possible. In the past, operators could learn from online and classroom training, but their first opportunity to actually operate a lift required them to get into a lift. Today, VR makes it possible to get realistic-feeling experience, and learn to avoid real-world hazards that can cause jobsite accidents, from the safety of a virtual world. And, because our brains don’t recognize the difference between virtual and real worlds, it makes this an incredibly emotional and impressionable way to learn.”