I started climbing antenna towers in the 1990s with a body belt, a hard hat, and a healthy dose of hope. Looking back, it’s amazing what we considered normal. Fall protection was nowhere near what it is today. Equipment was basic, training was inconsistent, and injuries were simply accepted as part of the job. If someone took a fall, people talked about what they did wrong—not what the industry could do better.
Fortunately, those days are behind us, at least locally.
I’ve spent more than thirty years working around high-rise buildings, suspended access systems, roof anchors, Building Maintenance Units (BMUs), and the engineers, architects, manufacturers, and tradespeople responsible for keeping workers safe. During that time, I’ve watched our industry evolve in ways that would have been difficult to imagine when I first tied into a safety line.
Early in my career, access was often something that was figured out after the building was designed. The focus was getting the structure built, and maintenance was someone else’s problem. It wasn’t uncommon to arrive at a building years later and realize there was no practical way to safely reach large portions of the façade. The people maintaining the building had to improvise, and improvisation is rarely where safety begins.
Today, we have that conversation much earlier.
Access specialists are now sitting at the table with architects and engineers while buildings are still on paper. Manufacturers are developing increasingly sophisticated equipment that becomes part of the building itself rather than an afterthought. Permanent anchors, monorails, davit systems, BMUs, and engineered tie-back systems are now carefully integrated into the design because everyone recognizes that a building’s life really begins after construction ends.
I’ve had the opportunity to work on buildings with some remarkably advanced access systems, but I’ve also stood on rooftops scratching my head, wondering what the original designer expected the maintenance crew to do twenty years later. Some beautiful buildings become extremely difficult to maintain because no one asked a simple question during design: “How is someone going to safely get there?”
That one question can make the difference between a straightforward maintenance program and decades of unnecessary expense, complexity, and risk.
The engineering behind access systems has also changed dramatically. Structural analysis has become more sophisticated. Testing requirements are more clearly defined. Certification and inspection programs are now recognized as essential rather than optional. Manufacturers continue to push innovation, while engineers ensure these systems perform exactly as intended. Together, they’ve raised the standard for everyone.
Technology is changing our work as well. Digital inspection reports, asset tracking, electronic certification records, drones, BIM models, and predictive maintenance are beginning to reshape how buildings are managed. Building owners increasingly want to know not only that their systems are safe today, but that they’ll remain safe for years to come. Good records are becoming just as valuable as good equipment.
One thing, however, hasn’t and won’t change.
Gravity… it still wins every time.
No matter how advanced our technology becomes, every access system ultimately exists for one purpose: to allow someone to go home safely at the end of the day. That’s a goal our industry should never stop pursuing.
When I look back at climbing towers in the 1990s, I sometimes wonder how we all made it through with the equipment and practices we accepted at the time. But every generation learns from the one before it. The incidents, close calls, engineering advances, and new regulations have all contributed to a safer industry than the one I entered.
We’re not finished evolving, either. Robotics, automated façade inspections, digital twins, and smarter building management systems will continue changing the way we inspect and maintain buildings. Yet I believe the biggest improvements will still come from something much simpler: getting the right people involved early. When architects, engineers, manufacturers, contractors, and access specialists work together from the beginning, everyone benefits—especially the people who will spend decades maintaining the building after the ribbon-cutting ceremony is over.
I’ve learned many lessons over the years, but one stands out above the rest. A building isn’t truly finished when construction ends. That’s simply the day its maintenance story begins. Designing for safe access isn’t just good engineering—it’s an investment in every worker who will step onto that roof for the next fifty years.
