Topcon Donates Auto Levels to Bridges for Prosperity to Build Trail Bridges in Africa
Photos by Bridges to Prosperity
Continuing a well-established support effort, Topcon Positioning Group has supplied additional equipment for Bridges to Prosperity (B2P). A not-for-profit organization, B2P constructs trail bridges to improve the lives of people in rural areas worldwide who lack safe access to basic, critical resources like healthcare, education, or employment because of impassable rivers or deep ravines. The shipment of 10 digital auto levels, an in-kind donation from Topcon, is targeted for work in the East African country of Rwanda as well as other African nations, according to Ron Oberlander, vice president of Topcon Global Professional Services.
“We are extremely pleased to be able to continue our support to B2P,” he said. “The new equipment is that next step in digitalizing their job site to make their projects a bit better, a bit easier, a bit more efficient. It’s not often a company like ours gets to see immediate, tangible results of its philanthropic efforts, but that’s definitely the case with each bridge B2P completes. We believe strongly in the work they do and are happy to contribute to their mission.”
The donation will have a similarly immediate impact on B2P’s ability to be more productive, according to Nicola Turrini, B2P’s manager of Global Corporate Partnerships and one of the organization’s structural engineers.
"Thanks to this latest in-kind donation from Topcon, the new auto levels will allow every B2P engineer working in both Rwanda and Uganda to have his or her own,” he said. “Simple as that might sound, it will make a huge difference for the various projects we have going on at once. While we, like the rest of the world, were slowed by COVID, we’ve recovered nicely and are planning to construct 50 or more bridges this calendar year. This — and all the equipment we’ve received from Topcon — will greatly streamline the construction process to make that goal possible. We are grateful for their continued and generous support.”
More on the organization is available at bridgestoprosperity.org.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.