Mike Hansford is to become the new Chief Executive of the Road Surface Treatments Association (RSTA).
He will leave his current position as Highway Asset Manager at Dorset Council and start his new role on August 29. Mr Hansford will work alongside current Chief Executive Paul Boss in a hand-over period, before he retires after four years in charge of the association.
During his time, he has helped membership of the association grow to over 90, guided it and supported the sector through COVID 19 and has presided over a period of growth of surface treatments across the UK.
Prior to this current role, Mr Boss had over 30 years’ experience within local authority highways, both directly with local authorities and with Tier 1 provider Amey. From 2005 to 2020, he was Highway Asset Manager looking after strategic, tactical and operational highway asset management in Staffordshire.
Ahead of securing the role of Chief Executive at the RSTA, Mr Hansford’s career with Dorset Council (Dorset County Council prior to 2019) has spanned over 29 years, of which approximately 25 have been in Highways.
His job at Dorset was to oversee strategic highways asset management, asset group lead/client role for carriageways, footways, drainage, signing and roadmarkings, whilst also overseeing the design team for a £20million+ structural maintenance programme, performance and benchmarking, and highways systems.
Mr Hansford is also Chair of the South West Regional Asset Management Group, and he also sits on the UKRLG Asset Management Board.
Speaking about his appointment, Mr Hansford said: “I am delighted to take up the position of Chief Executive of the RSTA during a period of growth of membership and of use of surface treatments as more local authorities and contractors move to a more proactive approach to highway maintenance.
“I am excited to build on the great work undertaken by Paul and the team at the RSTA and am looking forward to working with the membership and Executive Committee to put more plans and improvements in place.”
Mr Boss said: “After more than 35 years in the sector and 41 years in total of my working life, I have decided now is the time to retire and see some parts of the world that I haven’t had time to see so far. I am very pleased with the progress the RSTA has made over the last four years and I will give my 100% support to Mike for as long as he needs it to ensure he has the best start in building on the solid platform we have built as an association over the last few years.
“With a new government likely to be in place very soon and the fact that more authorities are using surface treatments, this is an exciting time for him to take over and for the industry at large.”