The New Wave: GROHE Professional in Lisbon
Tiffany Baker – Ground breaker
Continuing our series of films from the GROHE Professional industry showcase in Lisbon, The New Wave is delighted to introduce the winner of the inaugural HIP Magazine Female Plumber Award, Tiffany Baker. HIP is the magazine for the heating and plumbing installer community, and GROHE has been delighted to be involved in promoting these first awards for female technical students. One of our four brand pillars is sustainability, which on one level means moulding our business practices to respect the environment and conserve natural resources. But it also means working to ensure the sustainability of our industry as a whole. With skilled installers now a scarce resource, we’ve been taking steps to promote diversity and make our industry attractive to as many groups as possible. If our industry is to thrive in the years ahead, then the idea of plumbing being a boys’ club has to be dispelled.
One of the ways we have of opening up a plumbing career to youngsters who perhaps hadn’t considered it is the GIVE Program. We’re putting resources – knowledge and equipment – into technical colleges all over the world, giving students hands-on experience of working with GROHE’s advanced products and benefitting from the experience of our engineers. We’re also providing an industry-backed qualification and using our contacts to guide students into work placements as a leg up to what we trust will be a wonderful career. We’re delighted that one of the GIVE success stories is a young woman as bright and determined as Tiffany, and it’s great to see her making the most of the encouragement we’ve tried to give.
Shy and unassuming, Tiffany is perhaps an unlikely pioneer. But she has shown a lot of grit to overcome the scepticism that can greet a young woman who embarks on a non-traditional course in life. She has definitely used the less helpful comments from her male colleagues to spur her on. And she cites the support of her college tutors, and the advantages of practising on GROHE products, as being keys to her success so far. Showing the GIVE Program off to the wider industry is a big part of this Lisbon showcase. And we couldn’t have hoped for a better advert for what the program can achieve than Tiffany herself. We’re delighted that she was able to spare time away from her studies to make the trip out, as she is a wonderful example of what the right resources placed with the right people can do for an individual’s confidence and prospects.
Our industry needs thousands of Tiffanys to come through every year, and the GIVE Program can measure its future success on scenes like this becoming commonplace. For now, let’s hear from a very original young woman.
