| 11 T T Virginia Wright Training provider hitting the mark Workplace First Aid Training won the Excellence in Service category at the 2025 Grand Business South Awards. Workplace First Aid Training REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT To be a scuba diving instructor you must be 18 which is why Phil Hudson became the youngest scuba diving instructor in the world when he graduated from his course on the day of his 18th birthday. As an instructor you must be able to teach rescue diving which means you also have to be a first aid instructor, and it was that part of his training that changed the course of his life in his mid-20’s after several years in the scuba diving industry, he explains. “It was 2004 when I had a chance encounter with a women I’d trained who came up to me in the supermarket crying. “She gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek and went on to tell me that she’d performed CPR on one of her family members at a barbeque and revived them, and she put it down to the training she’d got from me.” It didn’t take much soul searching for Phil to realise that he’d rather have more encounters that involve passing on his life-saving skills, than instructing people how to scuba dive. Within 24 hours he was setting up Workplace First Aid Training and he’s been instrumental in helping people save lives ever since. Workplace First Aid Training Ltd won the Excellence in Service category at the 2025 Grand South Business Awards. Working in his new business part time, Phil swapped out scuba diving to become the District Manager of Surf Lifesaving Otago, while running Workplace First Aid Training after hours, on the weekends and in his spare time, before he finally started running his business full time. That didn’t stop him continuing as the Otago Helicopter Underwater Escape Trainer (H.U.E.T) in his down time for many years. He trained the three people who survived the April 22, 2019 Auckland Island event. They put their survival down to not only their survival equipment, but also Phil’s training. Just over 20 years since he began, Workplace First Aid Training has become an approved, audited, Private Training Establishment (PTE) with NZQA and has trained over 8000 organisations. To assist each organisation with easy enrolments Phil and his team developed and invested in a custom-built in-house database which gives each business manager their own login to help them check and manage their staff training status. Consistency was essential. Phil developed a regional instructor induction programme, which included one-on-one training following being assessed by an experienced instructor/ moderator at Head Office in Dunedin. Safe to say that little is left to chance when it comes to the life-saving skills involved. That first encounter in the supermarket may have been the most memorable but there have been many other times where people have come up to shake Phil’s hand in the supermarket and tell him about how his training paid off for them. “It’s just so humbling to be part of people saving other people’s lives when I’m not there but I’ve passed on my skills to them,” says Phil. “It’s just so humbling to be part of people saving other people’s lives when I’m not there but I’ve passed on my skills to them.” YOU THINK IT, WE INK IT 03 477 1238 print@speedprint.co.nz www.speedprint.co.nz WORKPLACE FIRST AID TRAINING IS PROUD TO SUPPORT Moore Markhams Otago is part of a global network of offices, providing accounting and advisory services, advising local, national and international clients in the public and private sectors. 03 477 0032 otago@markhams.co.nz markhams.co.nz Queenstown Dunedin Accountants and Advisors
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