I want to talk about what happens to knowledge when experienced technicians leave — through retirement, physical and mental burnout, or simply moving on — and what organisations can do about it before it's too late.

Every time an experienced technician leaves this industry, something leaves with them that we haven't worked out how to keep.

I've been to a lot of retirement parties in this industry. Some of them twice — because the person was asked to come back after they left, once everyone realised that sitting with them was decades of knowledge that nobody had thought to capture, document, or pass on properly. That's not a criticism of those individuals. It's a reflection of how little we invest in knowledge transfer until it's almost too late.

And the retirements are coming faster now.

Our workforce is ageing. The people who built their careers in the 80s, 90s and…

There's a contradiction sitting at the heart of our industry that I don't think we talk about: we say we need experienced art technicians. But where are those experienced technicians supposed to come from? The magical art technician tree?

Entry into the art technical profession has predominantly been informal forever. You got in through word of mouth. Through someone you studied with at art school. Through being in the right place at the right time, knowing the right people, volunteering for the right institution. Through slowly building confidence over years of watching and doing and making mistakes when the stakes were low enough to survive them.

That's how most of us got here.

But that system only works when access to those spaces is broad. And is it still — I don't think it is.

Art education, where most technicians came from, has shifted significantly. Educational costs are high. Working…

So we all know art and artefacts don't protect themselves — skills and knowledge do.

But here's the uncomfortable truth that I think we need to sit with for a moment:

What actually happens when those skills aren't aligned across a team / workforce / industry?

When something goes wrong in our industry, the instinct is to look for fault. Who moved it, who packed it, who installed it, who condition reported it? And sometimes that's the right question. But most preventable damage doesn't come from carelessness — it comes from inconsistency. One technician was shown one method, another learned differently, materials and resources vary between sites, and shortcuts creep in quietly under the pressure of a tight work schedule.

And here's the thing — the damage that results from this rarely looks dramatic. It's a scuff on a frame, a stress mark on a canvas, packaging that wasn't quite…

Museums, galleries, studios, archives, heritage sites and logistics companies all share one responsibility:

Safeguarding objects of cultural and historical significance.

So riddle me this…

We invest in climate control.

We invest in security systems.