It's not unusual that one of the career paths available to an experienced technician is going into project management. But Peter's Principle warns us about the risks of doing it without proper preparation, since succeeding in one position doesn't guarantee further success in the other.
I've found some Q&A about applying for a PM position (e.g. How to handle selection process for new project manager position I'm interested in?, how do I prove my project coordinator skills in the hiring process?) and a very specific question about the transition from programmer to PM, but they deal with the matter from the point of view of the employee, not of the company (or the person leading the hiring process).
If the company prefers promoting Project Managers from the inside, instead of hiring them from the outside (for example because of a steep learning curve), the company has to, somehow, widen the path from technical to managerial tasks, in order to facilitate that some of the technicians could go this way, instead of walking further into their own technical career path.
What are the keys the company needs to search for when hiring new (and good) technicians, so it can increase the chances of some of them becoming good PMs in the future?