If you take a lot of pride in your work then a career as a grader operator could be ideal. Of course, you need to like working outdoors and working as part of team. As you drive around your neighborhood, along city streets, and out on the highway, take note at how well the roads have been made. You can lay a lot of the credit right into the lap of the grader operators who worked to precise measurements.

Grader operators are responsible for providing a smooth base that has been carved to the right slope prior to finish being applied. It takes a lot of skill to work to such fine measurements, yet many operators learn these skills in quite a short period of time. You can credit this to the type of training received in the first place. Quality training is one of the keys to most occupations and grader operators are no different.

ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools have been at the forefront of heavy equipment training for over thirty years. We know what skills and attributes employers are looking for when it comes to new recruits and, over time, have developed a reputation for delivering. For those looking to enter the field of heavy equipment, proper training has to be the first consideration.

Is there a demand for operators? There is and, generally speaking, there always will be. While ever we build roads, undertake new housing developments, and undertake large constructions projects, heavy equipment operators including grader operators will be in demand. It is predicted that our aging population will result in a fairly sudden drop in the number of workers available to fill these roles. If you’re interested in a career as a heavy equipment operator, now could be the best time to undertake training – this will see you trained and experienced, ready to fill the coming void.

Road graders have long been a bastion of male dominance. While women have found their way into truck driving and bulldozer operations, they haven’t shown much interest in graders. That, however, seems to be changing quite quickly. In fact, women are looking at all forms of heavy equipment now and the technical challenge of graders is becoming appealing.

Are employers ready to take on female grader operators? It appears so. Of course, equal opportunity is playing a big role, but skills are still the determining factor. These days it doesn’t matter who you are or what your background is, if you can demonstrate the skills required then you have an equal chance of landing that job. Modern machinery is one of the biggest factors in helping nontraditional workers enter the heavy equipment field.

Today’s heavy equipment relies less on the strength of the operator and more on their ability to coordinate their feet and hands. Power steering, for example, has made the operation of this equipment fingertip easy. Controls on many units of heavy equipment are similar to joysticks found with computer gaming machines – just a little heavier and more intuitive.

A sure sign that industry is more accepting of women in their ranks is to look at some of the heavy equipment training schools. In the past, you may have found one or two women attending these schools each year. Now you can often find one or two attending each time a course is conducted. ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools doesn’t discriminate in any fashion. If you have what it takes to become a grader operator, or any other unit of heavy equipment, then we are there ready to train you and to help you gain a start in your new career.

While operating a grader is not quite child’s play, it’s certainly achievable for most adults no matter what gender or background. If you want to find out more about heavy equipment careers, contact us and we’ll be happy to discuss your training options.

Step into the cab of a modern grader and you will wonder if it is a piece of heavy equipment, or a well designed office. Compare modern graders from those of twenty years ago. The outside working components have only changed marginally. But in the cab – let’s just say that twenty years ago most graders didn’t have cabs; all they had were roll bars.

The modern cab on a grader has wrap-around windows and air conditioning. It’s no longer a hot (or cold) and dusty (or muddy) job. When I say air conditioning, I mean climate control – the full system with dust exclusion filters and all. Add to this two-way radios for communication, CD players for entertainment and you start to get the picture – and you haven’t even started the motor yet.

Operating has now been simplified with some manufacturers moving from levers to joy-stick type controls. Add to this computer-aided settings for the blades, often connected to a GPS system, and suddenly the grader is a huge machine capable of completing jobs to finest measurements. It really is amazing how much change has gone into a machine as complex as a grader.

Despite all these changes, the operations of a grader are still pretty much the same. A blade is set to a specific height and angle and the grader then carves the surface to a finish dictated by engineers and plans. Learning to operate a grader can be undertaken in as little as three weeks with operators then ready to enter the work force. Interested in grader operator training? Contact ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools for more information.

One of the things you will notice about graders is that they tend to work on their own. This can be a little misleading because graders are really just one part of a large team – a very integral part of that team. Road making, for example, is done in stages with different heavy equipment handling each stage. A grader cannot commence until a bulldozer has finished its work; likewise, the hot-mix machines cannot commence until the grader has completed its work.

As part of a team, you will often see that roads are built in sections. A bulldozer will work on section one and, once completed, move onto section two. In the meantime, the grader sets to work on section one. When completed, it too moves on to section two. In a well oiled and efficient team, each piece of equipment finishes its job just in time for the next unit to come. They are all working as a team and before you know it, a new highway has been constructed.

Heavy equipment training at ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools offers students experience on a range of equipment. This is useful knowledge going into a work place since operators know what each unit of equipment is capable of. It all helps a team knit together over time – a factor you can see in a well oiled team that seems to complete jobs on time and with few problems.

If you enjoy working as both an individual and a team player then working as a heavy equipment operator could be an option. A grader is only one of the many options available, yet it can be one of the most challenging and exacting options in the heavy equipment range. Interested? Then contact us for more information on training dates and for the closest ATS school to you.

Graders – they’re weird looking beasts yet they perform a role that is vital to the success of any road building program. If you were to closely examine a grader its design would probably confound you. They are long and narrow and at times their front wheel bend at such an angle you would swear they were about to snap off. The design of a grader, like most heavy equipment, is one built from need.

Before graders, roads were built by hand with hundreds of laborers working long hours in the hot blazing sun to lay roads that were not quite level, but for their time, good enough. If you wanted a smoother or flatter finish to the road, you brought in heavy rollers like the old fashioned steam rollers. Now, although rollers are still used, they perform a different role.

The advent of graders has meant that work gangs are no longer needed in such high numbers. In fact, these days most workers on road crews are qualified in some field – we certainly don’t need the scores of laborers we once did. The role of a grader is fairly straightforward although the job itself is certainly not ‘straightforward’. The grader ‘grades’ the surface. In other words it carves and shapes the road much like a knife cutting through butter. The very slight slope that all roads have owes itself to the precise skills of a grader operator – skills that can be developed in as short as three weeks yet take a lifetime to really master.

You can start that journey to becoming a master grader operator by completing a three week heavy equipment training program that provides you with the skills to operate equipment like graders. If you’re ready for the journey, we are ready to help you through those first few weeks – you just need to take those first few steps.

Perhaps it’s true – you can’t have beauty and brains! I know some people would argue with me when I say that road graders are not exactly the prettiest of machines – I guess it is all in the eyes of the beholder. Pretty or not, road graders are becoming one of the most intelligent units of the heavy equipment family.

GPS and laser leveling are just two areas of technology that road graders incorporate. Some motor graders are now coming off production lines with complete computer systems. These systems constantly monitor areas like the angle and height of the blade and use GPS and laser leveling to constant fine tune these settings. This means a road grader can complete a job with less passes and that means less time. Compared to road graders of 20-30 years ago, today’s models can complete jobs in almost half the time of the older models.

For new operators coming through, it doesn’t mean that life gets easier – if anything, it gets a little harder – at least during the early stages. New operators need to learn skills involving GPS, laser and computer systems. Heavy equipment training has come a long way in recent years in order to meet this new technology. This is perhaps one area where ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools excel – we stay up to date with all the latest technology and deliver training to students that is relevant to today’s equipment, not equipment that was relevant 30 years ago.

Road grader operators are always in demand. Whether it is helping to build new roads in the summer or helping to clear snow laden roads in the winter, there is always a call for operators. If you’re interested in a career as a road grader operator, contact us today to discuss your training options and to find a training school close you.

Graders are perhaps the gentle giants of the heavy equipment industry. It’s not brute strength that gets the job done with a grader; it’s finesse. Their role is to do the final sculpting of a surface, particularly when it comes to road building. You can often see them working up and down a stretch of new road and they seem to be moving a tiny amount of material. Like a good sculptor, it is those small amounts that make a huge difference to the finished surface.

Learning to become a grader operator is actually quite easy. Like many professions, the finer points of the operating a grader can only come with experience and to be truly proficient, you need to base that experience on a solid training foundation. When it comes to training, you can watch someone else then copy their bad habits; you can get big dollars for training from an unqualified or non-accredited trainer; or you can find a local training company that is accredited as a heavy equipment training business; and that delivers training that has been accredited to national standards.

Now consider who you would employ if you were in the construction business. I don’t think I need to say any more. Accredited training is now a must when it comes to heavy equipment. In some states, you cannot work on a site without at least the safety component on this training. When searching for a training company to undertake grader training, look for a business like ATS.

At ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools we make grader operator training easy. In fact, along the way you will pick up skills and knowledge on a variety of heavy equipment – this gives you a wider range of equipment to work on after training. Our heavy equipment training programs run for three weeks and include in-class and behind-the-controls training. We also include safety components as required by many states. In fact, our training is accredited to national standards. This means your skills are going to be recognized nationwide. Grader operator training – do you want the easy way or the hard way?

It may be March and spring may be in the air but try telling that to the residents of Homer in Alaska. They had to call on every grader in the area to help clear out several feet of snow that had fallen in a late blizzard. One of the joys of operating heavy equipment like road graders is that you never know what sort of job you could be called on to do next.

For the people of Homer, I am sure they are happy to have had graders and grader operators in their midst. Mind you, many of the students may not have been. Their schools were closed for the first time in over 20 years and it wasn’t until road graders had cleared the way that they could re-open. For those of us in warmer climates, moving snow at this time of the year is probably the last thing on our mind.

Becoming a grader operator is not as difficult as many people would imagine. A three week heavy equipment training program will provide sufficient skills and knowledge to gain a start in the workforce. From there, it’s really a matter of gaining as much experience as possible. With experience comes more knowledge and over time experience in more trying conditions.

ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools deliver nationally accredited training in a wide range of equipment including road graders, excavators, bulldozers and backhoes. Each training course runs for three weeks and we have training schools across the country. If you are interested in operating heavy equipment like road graders (perhaps not in Alaska), then give us a call. We can advise on course start dates and heavy equipment operator school close to your location.

Grader operators are amongst the best paid when it comes to heavy equipment operators. Their average pay checks are ahead of excavator operators with bulldozer operators coming in third. All three work in positions that demand a high level of precision when it comes to a finished job. Grader operators are probably recognized as having a tougher task when it comes to precision earth moving and that is reflected in their pay checks.

Wages for grader operators can be anything from $30,000 to $80,000 depending on the skills, years of experience, job requirements and job location. Excavator operators have an earning potential of between $30,000 and $70,000, again dependent on those attributes. However, excavator operators that advance to the giant mining excavators can earn even more.

For a career that starts with just three weeks of training, you have to admit those wages are a fairly good return on your investment. When looking at fees for career courses, that is how you should assess them – they are an investment (along with your time) and like all investments, you need to look at the return. I don’t know many investments that could return those dividends.

ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools provide heavy equipment training that encompasses graders, excavators and bulldozers along with several other units of heavy equipment. Our courses are conducted over a three week period and include behind the controls and classroom instruction. Our aim is to have you ready to enter the workforce at the end of that three week training period. With potential earnings of over 50k, you must admit the return on your investment could be well worth the effort.

Some people love them, some people hate them, but without a doubt our highways make traveling long distances quicker and easier. Every single highway had, at some stage, a grader or two working to prepare the way for the seal. In fact, graders have made the job of road building so much easier.

What most lay people don’t realize is that the grader is the one machine most responsible for ensuring our roads are flat and built at the right slope. This is important for water control in the wet (the water needs to be able to drain away quickly rather than just lie there) and for general road safety. Cambers on corners help to keep the car on the road.

Engineers of course have the task of designing our roads, designing the slopes and cambers, but it is the grader that is employed to deliver the results – all based on the plans put together by engineers. Grader operator training therefore needs to include training on how to read plans, and how to read soil types if the operator is going to be effective in their job.

At ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools we don’t just teach how to drive a grader, you are also trained on other aspects including reading plans, understanding soil types, workplace safety and basic maintenance procedures. As a graduate, you will have good general knowledge of your equipment and, of course, the skills required to actually operate the equipment.

Do you want to leave a permanent mark on society in one of the most helpful ways? Consider becoming a grader operator. Training only requires three weeks of your time and then you’re ready to hit the road!