When you are attending a training school, you want to have access to the most experienced instructors. When you are trained by an individual who has extensive on-the-job training and who is experienced in all aspects of the field. These are individuals who are passionate about what they do, and they want to share their knowledge and passion with others.

When you train to learn a new career field or a new skill, you want to work with an experienced and knowledgeable professional. Every instructor at ATS has worked in their field as a professional for an extended timeframe. ATS instructors include:

• Professional truck drivers
• Heavy equipment operators
• Crane operators
• Rigging/Signalperson
• Directional drilling

These instructors have worked for various trucking companies, and construction companies, on various job sites, and have completed different tasks. With the help of these instructors, you will find that you are ready to tackle any challenge that your chosen career might throw at you.

Many of our instructors spent decades working in their chosen field. They can put those years of experience to work for you and use them for your benefit. This offers you an advantage in the career field, so you can be prepared for the challenges that you face when performing your work duties.

Dedicated and Caring

Our team of caring instructors are dedicated to seeing their students excel. Nothing is as satisfying to them and nothing can reflect as positively on their abilities as students who are successful. Their goal is to help students succeed and do well in their careers. They understand that this is your chosen profession and that you want to be able to excel in your job duties while working to support your family and to provide them with a good life.

If you are serious about taking your career to its highest possible level, call Associated Training Services (ATS) today at (800) 383-7364. We take pride in offering the best quality specialized training for different roles. We will take the time to go over your options, and the financing aspect, and determine the best way for you to proceed.

Heavy equipment operators are always needed, but those who can operate cranes and other heavy equipment for the oil industry are in great demand. While many heavy equipment operators work a 40-hour week, those who work in the gas and oil industry often must work overtime and rotating shifts.

Those who work in the oil industry might have to work during inclement weather and can expect to be in a remote, noisy, dusty, and dirty work environment. To get a job working with heavy equipment, you must have undergone the proper training and you will need to take all the necessary safety precautions. You will need to wear protective gear that includes steel-toe boots, gloves, hard hats, safety glasses, and hearing protection.

Heavy Equipment Operators in the Oil and Gas Industry

Heavy equipment operators operate different kinds of heavy equipment to grade, excavate, and landscape earth or move equipment and materials. Heavy equipment is needed in the oil and gas industry to maintain roads to oilfields, pipeline right-of-ways, and wellpads while also helping with the mining and reclamation of oil sands.

While there are some heavy equipment operators who can handle several different kinds of equipment, there are those who specialize and focus on one specific machine. Here are some of the typical heavy equipment roles in the oil industry and gas industry:

• Bulldozer operators
• Backhoe operators
• Excavators
• Front-end loaders
• Power shovel operators
• Grader operators
• Heavy haul truckers
• Motor scrapers
• Buggy operators

Those who operate heavy equipment in the oil industry and gas industries are usually responsible for lubricating, refilling fluids, cleaning and maintaining the equipment, and conducting pre-operational inspections on the equipment. Also, some employers may expect heavy equipment operators to perform minor repairs on the equipment they operate.

Training and Experience

To operate heavy machinery in the oil industry and gas industry, the individual must have the proper training. That means you will need to have a high school diploma and heavy equipment operating courses along with on-the-job training. ATS operates a heavy equipment operator training school. To learn more, call (800) 383-7464.

If you are interested in operating heavy equipment, you might want to train to get a job working with the railroads. A railroad crane, which is sometimes called a crane car or wrecker, is a kind of crane that is used for working on railroads for three different purposes.

Here are reasons railroad cranes are used:

• Freight handling
• Permanent way maintenance
• Accident recovery work

While the crane’s design might differ based on the kind of work it will be used for, it will have the same basic configuration. They are designed with a rotating body that is mounted onto a chassis that has flanged wheels. The body will support the boom and has the mechanisms used for operating and lifting. Most larger cranes will have a cabin for the operator.

A coupling gear is fitted onto the chassis so a locomotive can move the crane, but many cranes are self-propelled so they can somewhat move around the job site. If the crane has a jib that is larger and extends beyond the chassis length, a boom car will be provided to protect the jib and to let the crane be coupled within the train. A boom car is a flat wagon that allows the jib to be secured for transport. It often has storage areas for supplies and special equipment.

Operating Crane on Railroads

Operating a railroad crane requires special skills and training. The operator must understand the operations process and all the safety techniques because the equipment will be used for detailed jobs in tight spaces. And, if the job isn’t done correctly, it could put many lives on the line and millions of dollars of equipment at risk.

Railroad cranes have capacities ranging from 15 tons to 250 tons. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) sets requirements and standards regarding railroad crane operation. If you are interested in a career in railroads as a crane operator, you will need to get the proper training and certifications so you can adhere to the standards established by OSHA.

Associated Training Services (ATS) offers a heavy equipment training school that teaches students how to use cranes, including those used by railroad companies. To learn more about the programs available, call (800) 383-7364 today!

The United States has had military troops in Syria since 2014. The American-led intervention in the Civil War in Syria includes troops from the United Kingdom, Jordan, Turkey, France, Australia, Canada, and other nations. These troops joined to support the Syrian opposition to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the al-Nusra Front.

The Syrian Civil War began in 2011, and the U.S. initially supplied Free Syrian Army rebels with non-lethal aid including pickup trucks and food but started providing selected Syrian commanders with training, intelligence, and money. The Obama administration began surveillance missions in September 2014 focusing on the ISIL’s positions and the U.S. was joined by other nations in attacking ISIL forces inside Syria shortly thereafter.

Details of the U.S. Presence in Syria

In mid-January of 2018, the Trump administration announced it would maintain an open-ended military presence in Syria to help oust Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and to counterattack Iran’s influence. By December of 2018, President Trump ordered the withdrawal of about 2,500 American ground troops from Syria, with those troops ordered home to be home in 2019.

In January 2019, President Trump said America must “stop the endless wars” and has started withdrawing U.S equipment and troops from Syria. The president said the withdrawal of troops was long overdue, and despite bringing troops home, the U.S. is hitting the few remaining ISIS remaining targets.

U.S. troops have spent more than four years in Syria, but not all troops will leave the country until ISIS has been defeated and the allies are protected, according to John Bolton, the national security adviser. The United States has had seven servicemen killed while serving in Syria. There have been about 560,000 people killed in the Syrian Civil War including government forces, civilians, and rebels from 2011 to 2018, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Thanking our Military

Associated Training Services (ATS) appreciates our veterans. Offering a variety of programs, we accept military assistance. In more than half a century of the school’s history, more than 2,000 veterans have undergone training to start careers after their military service. To learn more about ATS, call today.

Many people think heavy equipment operators do one thing – and that is operate heavy equipment. But a heavy equipment operator must do much more. In order to do his or her job properly, he or she must be able to do grade reading and site layout.

Grade reading is very important because the ground will not be the same as it was when you started working on it when you get finished with the job. The site layout is important because you might think your machine or heavy equipment will fit into an area so you can do the job, but it doesn’t fit there. You must be ready to come up with an alternative plan so you can still get the job done as it needs to be done.

The Proper Training For Operators

If you plan on operating heavy equipment, you must undergo extensive training. That training should include much more than just learning to operate the machine. If your goal is a career as a heavy equipment operator, you need to learn all the extra information that is required to do your job efficiently and effectively.

Construction Grade Reading

Architects indicate elevations for grades on a site plan by establishing an existing reference point that should remain undisturbed during the construction process. This reference point is called the benchmark. The benchmark might be a steel stake in the ground or a sidewalk. All other elevations are calculated in relation to the benchmark.

For construction workers to find this information helpful, the decimal is usually converted to inches from 1/100s of a foot. Subtract the elevation that is being sought from the elevation of the benchmark. Negative values indicate that the elevation is higher than the benchmark. For example, if you have a benchmark at 100 feet and the grade elevation is set at 101.50, the difference would be -1.50 which makes the elevation one-and-a-half feet above the benchmark.

Heavy Equipment Training

If you are looking for a career as a heavy equipment operator, Associated Training Services (ATS) offers complete training that includes:

• Machine operation
• Grade reading
• Site layouts
• Safety procedures
• Heavy equipment maintenance
• Soil identification
• Laser levels
• And more

Call us today to learn about our programs.

As you should be aware, OSHA’s new crane requirement rule became effective on November 10, 2018. Part of that rule involves the requirement for the employer to train and evaluate its crane operators in addition to those operators being certified. 

• To be a “Qualified Operator” under the new OSHA rule, the operator must be certified and evaluated.
• Operators who have not been certified and evaluated are considered “Operators-in-Training.”
• Operators-in-Training cannot operate without supervision.
• Operators-in-Training must be monitored at all times by a trainer who meets established criteria.

Associated Training Services (ATS) and ATS Specialized can help you meet both of these requirements. ATS has been training, certifying and evaluating equipment operators since 1959. Let ATS help you develop your operator certification and evaluation programs to ensure you are in compliance with all of the requirements of the new OSHA crane rule.

For more information, please contact Peter at 608-354-0723 or peter.k@atsdigs.com.  Thank you for your time and consideration.

Wisconsin project, Foxconn, plans for a $10 billion plant in Wisconsin may or may not be a go, according to conflicting reports. Some recent reports indicate that the officials in charge of Foxconn might be abandoning the plans for the manufacturing plant and switching the project to a knowledge hub. But, others in charge of the project allege that the original $10 billion project will continue as originally planned.

Reuters reports that more than $200 million has already been invested in the project. Foxconn is a firm based in Taiwan, which originally announced it would make LCD technology products at the new manufacturing facility. However, some officials have said since the original announcement that making the products in the U.S. isn’t economically feasible. The assessment was made based on how much would be needed for the creation of 13,000 manufacturing jobs, which would be in return for promised tax incentives.

The Latest Updates

Foxconn Technology Group CEO Terry Gou notified the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation that Foxconn wouldn’t tap into the hiring incentives for its $10 billion LCD manufacturing facility to be in Mount Pleasant because it hasn’t met the goals that were agreed upon in order to obtain those incentives.

Gou indicated that the company created 1.032 direct jobs during 2018, which included 854 positions in construction, but only 178 of them qualified for the agreed-upon incentive program. The company would have been eligible for as much as $9.5 million in tax credits, according to a report in the Milwaukee Business Journal, if only 260 jobs had been created by Foxconn. The company could potentially get as much as $3 billion in incentives if at least 13,000 full-time positions are created by the manufacturing facility.

Where it Stands

While there has been a setback, Foxconn did report that the construction for the Wisconsin project is progressing on schedule and more than $200 million has been invested in the project. The hired teams thus far have been 95% based in Wisconsin. The crews have moved more than 4 million cubic yards of dirt and they have finished building a 120,000-square-foot building that is multi-purpose. The building construction involved 37 contractors.

During the construction phase, contractors will share space with the company development and research teams in the multipurpose building. Total contract awards were about $14 million. The general contractor is a joint venture of Gilbane Building Co. and M+W Group.

A broad term that is used to describe boring that doesn’t go in a vertical straight line, the directional drilling process is used in the oil and gas industry. Even a vertical well, deviation might be needed to get around a geological formation or a pipe before returning to the planned path.

The driller might use sidetracking techniques, which is a kind of directional drilling. When it comes to conventional drilling for gas and oil, the drill string, drill bit, casing, and pipe all go down in a straight line. If the drill operator aims the equipment away from the 180-degree down angle, that would technically be directional drilling.

In this modern age with technological advances, there will most likely be a series of pre-planned directional changes throughout the drilling process. Directional drilling has been used for more than a century.

Technological Advances

Technological improvements during the last few decades have helped improve turns, angles, and underground distances that are covered more efficiently and effectively. Techniques such as extended reach drilling (ERD), horizontal drilling, and multilateral drilling are enhanced approaches that are used for oil recovery that increase the downhole yield significantly.

ERD specialists can drill at depths or distances that exceed 6.2 miles. When the drilling rig is imagined as the tree trunk, the directional possibilities of the roots or paths are endless. When you look at the branches of the roots as multilateral drilling, the options are countless.

What Makes Directional Drilling Valuable?

Multiple downholes can be drilled using the same rig, which can reduce the disturbance on the surface and limit the impact on the environment. This approach allows boreholes to reach as far as a mile down and as far as five miles at angles where they are shallow. If you are in an oilfield that has dispersed deposits, drillers can tap a large radius. In turn, this maximizes the rig asset.

Directional drill operators need specialized training, which can be attained at special training schools. Call Associated Training Schools today to learn about the directional drill training program. ATS offers heavy equipment training in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.

Snow removal can be a lucrative business during the winter months. Many landscaping and construction companies offer snow removal services to keep the cash coming in and employees working during the off-season when construction slowdowns occur. Snow can present hazards that are very different than those encountered on the traditional construction site.

Safety should be a significant concern when you add snow removal to the services offered by your business. Professional snow removal takes much more than just a snow plow. Here are some of the different kinds of heavy equipment used for the snow removal process:

• Heavy-duty snow blades
• Power plows
• Box plows
• Skid steer snow blower
• Oscillating snow push
• Snow plow attachments
• Clamp-on snow blades
• Snowblower attachments
• Graders

Before the snowfall, make sure you have your equipment and trucks ready. You want to make sure your snow plows and trucks are set up for safety. That means you will need to make sure you strobe lights or flashing lights because visibility is lower even in daylight hours when it is snowing. You want to stand out to get noticed when you are driving around in the snow and plowing parking lots.

Make sure all employees have undergone the proper training. Safe drivers are much more likely to take better care of the equipment. You are most likely using the trucks year-round for all kinds of projects, so you don’t want them to be damaged while working in the winter weather and removing snow. Make sure your staff can drive safely in the snow and ice and be sure you put snow tires on your trucks before sending them out.

Remember that even the safest driver can have an accident and there are going to be less-experienced drivers out there in the snow as well. Be sure you have the right insurance coverage for your snow removal operations. Make sure you have bodily injury and property damage liability, collision and comprehensive, uninsured motorists’ bodily injury and property damage, and equipment coverage. Also, check local and state laws regarding operating such a business.

MILWAUKEE, WI. – The former home of the National Basketball Association (NBA) Milwaukee Bucks had its roof demolition on Sunday, January 13. Demolition crews used explosives to take down the facility’s roof. Crews have been slowly taking down the facility piece by piece after it closed during the Summer of 2018. The building was 30 years old. Using explosives called “shape charges,” the structure’s roof came down at about 9:02 a.m.

Crowds braved the cold weather to watch the demolition take place. The Milwaukee Bucks gained control over Bradley Center as part of the agreement that led to the construction of the new $524 million Fiserv Forum, located next door. The seven-acre site is expected to be used for future development by the Bucs around the new arena.

The complete demolition of the Bradley Center is expected to be done by summer. Bucks and Fiserv Forum Chief Communications Officer Barry Baum said in a news release that the removal of the roof structure went as planned, putting the organization a step closer to the complete demolition of the old structure.

While there hasn’t been an official announcement regarding what plans for the site next to the newer building, the Milwaukee Bucks own it. The Bucks officials have said as soon as the demolition is complete inside the arena, they will start working on the inside of the facility.

Herb Pundsack, of Veit and Company, explained that the process was designed to separate the roof from the rest of the structure so the interior demolition can get finished. He said the operation involved setting a couple of shape charges up in the building so it would lower the trusses down to a lower, safer level.

That put the interior lower, so the workers aren’t hanging 100 feet above the ground trying to demolish roof structure. Interior demolition is continuing right away, according to reports.