About us
AAK Safety provides personal protective equipment and fixed systems from leading and innovative manufacturers, ensuring safety in work at heights. We prioritize safety, efficiency, and user-friendliness for our customers. Our employees have extensive experience and know how to recommend the right equipment for the right challenge. We also share our knowledge through courses and training to make working at heights as safe as possible.
We collaborate with top equipment manufacturers and work closely with them to further develop the products. It is particularly important for us to deliver practical equipment that can be easily used while ensuring the safety our customers require in their daily work. We also offer fall protection solutions for permanent installation on all types of structures. We select equipment based on the experience of our own specialists and the desires and needs of our customers. Additionally, we emphasize the knowledge we have gained through many years of work in European standardization (CEN) and with leading equipment manufacturers.
From mountain sports to industry
AAK Safety has its origin in the steep nature of Romsdal. The unique community of competence emerged in the second half of the 20th century, and based itself on experience from cliffs and mountain peaks all over the world.
In the 1980s, the valley became subject of increasing attention nationally and internationally. The introduction of base jumping, as well as demanding alpine rescue operations and dramatic footage of steep mountains in film and tv-productions all contributed to this attention. The local climbing community has refined its special expertise in demanding operations, including in Trollveggen, one of the highest, steepest and most spectacular walls in Europe. Fred Husøy built on this competence when he launched his unique offer to people with an attraction to steep experiences; Aak Fjellsportsenter in 1987. Sheltered by the old timber walls that once housed Norway’s first tourist hotel, Hotel Aak, we became pioneers in Norway for commercial mountain tourism based on professional guidance in steep mountain nature.
Developing access technology
The small hotel at E-139 between Åndalsnes and Trollveggen quickly became a natural place to gather for climbers in Romsdalen – both locals and visitors. But while the place started to form a backdrop for a new era in Norwegian climbing history, it also became the hearth for an industrial application of the unique competence that existed here. In 1989 AAK started developing methods and equipment for a rope-based access system for use in an industrial context. The first assignments were carried out on the oil platform Gullfaks A in 1990 and marked the breakthrough for the use of Access Technology (TT) on the Norwegian continental shelf. Since then, other companies have followed in AAK’s footsteps. Today Access Technology is regulated through a national standard and equated with the use of scaffolding within the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway’s jurisdiction. In recent years, we have also seen the growth of TT in land-based operations.
The experience from guidance in mountain sports combined with competence from the development of Access Technology made it natural for AAK to continue with training activities within the industrial segment. AAK soon became known as a different course provider with a specialized course catalog and tailor-made offers for the individual customer. Since then, AAK has been representative of an understanding-based training that aims to enable participants to make safe, independent choices at height.
Market leading equipment
As Scandinavia’s leading competence environment in the area, the company has been a close partner for equipment manufacturers in the development of new equipment for work at height. It started with British Trolls who had their own connections to Romsdalen, and has developed into a retail business with a complete portfolio of products for PVU-based work at height. Today, AAK Safety is the market leader in Norway, which can largely be attributed to a conscious commitment to competent customer advisors who are able to offer the equipment that is optimal for the customer’s needs and challenges.
Sharing our expertise
From the very beginning, AAK has seen the importance of sharing its expertise and helping to shape developments in a field that, despite gloomy statistics, has been treated like a stepmother by both workinglife and the authorities. Representatives from AAK have participated in the preparation of ISO, CEN, Standard Norway, Cooperation For Security and SOFT. This is based on AAK’s values, but also on the importance it has for competence development and motivation internally – it helps to make us who we are. AAK’s strong focus on expertise has also meant that the company has been used as an advisor to a number of large and small companies in Norway.
Connected to the mountains
Throughout all these years, AAK has maintained its close connection to the mountain sports community, partly as a source of inspiration and partly as a knowledge and recruitment base. Some of the pioneers in AAK, those who helped bring the experiences from steep adventures in Romsdalen to the petroleum adventure on the Norwegian continental shelf, are still active in the company.
Along the way, we have been called AAK Fjellsportsenter, AAK Industrisikring, AAK AS and AAK Group. We are now AAK Safety, and we live for safe work at height. It’s in our blood. It always has.