The history of the bulldozer is rather simplistic and like most inventions, came from a need. They say that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ and that is true of the bulldozer.

In early days, the bulldozer was no more than a farm tractor which had a bulldozer style blade attached to the front. This blade had no independent movement. It could not be raised or lowered or tilted although later versions could be adjusted if the operator got out and made the adjustments manually.

The necessity that created the bulldozer was quite wide. Trees needed to be knocked down, tree stumps removed, rocks pushed aside and bumps in the terrain smoothed over. The old farm tractor bulldozer was fairly adept at handling these tasks.

Of course, eventually someone decided that money could be made from building a specific bulldozer, a unit that could have the blade controlled from within the cab, and a machine that had far more grunt that a simple farm tractor.

Today’s bulldozer look nothing like those first machines. When you climb into the cab of a modern bulldozer you could be met with an array of technology ranging from GPS to digital read outs on hydraulic pressure, blade positions and even internal temperature.

Whether you are operating a bulldozer that is fifty years old or a modern marvel, the concepts are still fairly similar. You still need to set a height and an angle of the blade, you still need to know how to attack a job, more importantly, you still need to be trained to get the most out of the machine.

ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools have been around for a long time, almost as long the bulldozer itself – well perhaps not quite that long. However we have grown with the technology and we are recognized by industry as a training organization that deliver quality training on range of heavy equipment including bulldozers. If you can see yourself behind the controls of a massive dozer, then give us a call to see what training options are available for you.

There are several government initiatives that provide financial aid to pay for some or all of a heavy equipment training program that leads to employment. However, for many workers facing redundancy, they should be checking with their employers to see if retraining is being offered as part of the redundancy.

If you have been warehouse worker you may have yearned to be a fork truck operator or perhaps a crane operator. For many others, the call of the outdoors and a new career operating a bulldozer, excavator or grader may be beckoning. Training is available that is accredited and recognized by most State and Federal government departments.

Redundancy can be seen as a negative – the end of the road, or it can be seen as a positive – the start of a new adventure. Using your redundancy to undertake training in a new field is a big step – however it can be a step in the right direction if it leads to successful employment. Of course redundancy does not always provide financial aid.

If you don’t have access to redundancy entitlements then check out what government programs are currently available in your area. The economic stimulus packages that have been announced contain many initiatives that include financial aid to help you take a change in your career.

ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools are accredited and approved to provide training under several financial aid packages. Contact us to see if financial aid is available for your circumstances.

The way the work situation is at present, no one really wants to quit their job to take up heavy equipment training with out the guarantee of a job at the end of the training. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees in life. You may decide after a week that perhaps heavy equipment operations is not for you – but then it is too late. You have quit your job and paid your fees.

It doesn’t have to be that way. You can keep working and earning while starting your heavy equipment training sitting at home. You do the training at your pace when it suits your lifestyle. Correspondence courses can be difficult to complete so we have made it even easier and put it altogether as an online training program.

To access the training, you simply log in and pick up where you left off. If you need to go back and refresh, it’s not a problem. More importantly, you can get a feel for what’s required as a heavy equipment operator and determine if you really are ready for a career change; and that heavy equipment is the right career change.

You can do all this whilst continuing to work and, more importantly, without outlaying a dime. That’s right, online heavy equipment training that is free, no strings, no obligations, all done in your time and at your pace.

Interested? Visit ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools for more information on their Heavy Equipment Trainingprogram.

There is so much talk about a recession and tough times, businesses failing and the resultant job losses, you would think there was no hope for the future. There are two areas that should be looked at under these circumstances – considering a career change and finding a ‘friend’ who can help you find employment in your new career.

Heavy equipment operations is one area that worth consideration. The road to recovery from a recession is generally through construction. As roads, houses, businesses and factories are built, more money goes into the economy, this results in more jobs and the circle of growth begins.

ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools can help you to train for a new career. Heavy equipment is an integral part of the construction industry so as construction grows, so to does the need for heavy equipment operators.

The big bonus is that ATS can also be that ‘friend’ that can help you find a start in your new career. ATS has a job placement service that helps new graduates connect to prospective employers. The service includes a job placement data base placement database that contains hundreds of employers who hire graduates right out of our school.

ATS has also developed a website that is dedicated to providing job placement help and employee resume tools. Resumes can be lodged and prospective employers can view these to help them select future employees.

When the economy is tough, you need help to find employment. This is particularly true when it is a new field and you have little knowledge of the major players. Do you have a job placement friend?

Mention the word training, even heavy equipment training, and most middle aged people switch off. According to them, they are too old to learn new tricks and training is for the next generation. There may be a few rare situations where this may be true, however, in 95% of occupations this is far from the truth.

You can take on a whole new career at any age. In fact, maturity can be a real asset for some careers. If you were an employer, would you prefer someone young who hasn’t developed a real work ethic yet, or someone with a little maturity who has already learned some of life’s lessons? There are arguments for both, however heavy equipment operations do require a level head, a willingness to follow safety requirements and a willingness to adapt – not traits always present in today’s younger generation.

Undertaking heavy equipment training is not an age issue. If you are reasonably fit then age will not be the barrier, your desire to learn and implement what you have learned will be. There are a lot of middle aged (30-50 and older) who have successfully undertaken heavy equipment training and commenced a career as heavy equipment operators so there is no reason why you shouldn’t. This applies to women as much as men as well.

ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools have a long tradition of training people of all ages from all walks of life. Their heavy equipment training is comprehensive yet easy to follow so don’t let age hold you back – use your age to your advantage.

I don’t know about you, I just love the open road. I could spend all day just driving – I guess like all things, the more you do it the more mundane it becomes – however I still think that truck driving should have been my first career choice.

Of course, some people hate driving. If you’re like me, then driving for a living would be ideal. Sure, there is a lot of work to do at either end of a long haul. The hours are long and the money only so so and the highways themselves are dangerous and I don’t mean from accidents. Do something wrong the boys in uniform are there ready to take away your license – and your job.

Gaining a license is the first step to working as a truck driver. Truck driver training is not difficult but it does take a high level of concentration and memory. Your CDL includes a written test related to all the road rules. Your practical test is your chance to demonstrate how well you can actually drive your rig.

ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools have been in the business of training truck drivers for over 40 years. In that time they have built up a database of over 10000 companies who employ graduates from ATS on a regular basis.

If you love the feel of the open road, then truck driving may be the right career for you. Visit ATS for information on truck driver training and CDL requirements. The next truck driver training course could be the start of satisfying career on the open highways.

Heavy equipment operators who are in the know are preparing themselves for a very busy summer. Since the American Recovery and Reinvestment program was announced, most states began finding areas that required significant funding. South Dakota is a prime example with almost 200 million dollars being applied to road works.

Think about what they are going to do with the funding. More than 240 miles of paving, 28 miles of pavement rehabilitation, 33 bridges and 28 safety improvement projects. That is a lot of work and under the Federal governments funding rules, the work must be commenced this summer – in fact the states have only 120 days to obligate those funds (apply them to projects).

With 240 miles of paving and 33 bridges, heavy equipment operators will be busy for months – and this is just one state. Multiply that across the country and there is a real possibility that states will find they cannot find enough qualified heavy equipment operators to get the projects completed on time.

You can beat the rush to becoming a qualified heavy equipment operator by getting your training done now. Once trained, you can take what ever work comes along so that you can gain valuable on-the-job experience. With training and experience, you will be ready to tackle some of these big projects as they come on line this summer.

One of the most highly respected heavy equipment training organizations is ATS with schools in over ten locations around the country. Visit ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools for details on their courses and get a head start on a new career before the rush for new operators starts in the summer.

Excavator or excavators are one of the pieces of heavy equipment that you may hear talk about but rarely actually see – unless you are specifically looking for them. They don’t do a lot of driving around like a bulldozer or loader, they tend to sit in one place and do a lot of work before being moved a small distance to continue on with the job.

The excavator consists of a cab, an engine, dual bulldozer-like tracks or treads, a boom arm, and an attachment.

• The cab is where the operator sits. It can generally pivot 360° on top of the tracks and act as enclosed rollover protection work areas.
• The engine provides power for the tracks and powers the hydraulic systems that run the arm and its attachments.
• The undercarriage includes the tracks that move the machine around, along with the sprockets and rollers that guide and propel the tracks.
• The boom is like an arm that extends from the body of the vehicle. It connects at an elbow to the stick that holds the attachment.
• It is the attachment that does the actual work – generally a bucket with teeth designed to dig an remove the loosened material.

Some excavators use a quick coupler that makes it a lot easier to switch between attachments. Some common attachments include augers for boring holes and thumbs for pinching or gripping, as well as hydraulic hammers, rakes, rippers, and mulchers.

Learning to operate an excavator is not that difficult. It just takes a little attention to detail and plenty of practice. ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools include excavators in their training program. Check us out for details on our next heavy equipment operator course.

Some construction sites that use heavy equipment can be real eye openers if you take the time to look at what is going on and how it affects the community. Often, the construction itself will become a historical item.

Take the Christopher S. Bond Bridge in Kansas City. This bridge, when completed in 2011, will become the first cable-stayed vehicle bridge ever constructed across the Missouri River. Without heavy equipment, that bridge would take another twenty years to complete.

Two barge-mounted heavy cranes were used to lift and position each of the 11-foot-diameter, 85,000-pound steel pipes that line the drill shafts. Once the pipes were in place 48 pieces of 85-foot-long rebar were lifted and positioned inside each pipe. Cranes will also be used to lift each of the 40 cables that will be anchored to the pylon.

Whilst the cranes are busy putting the huge jigsaw puzzle together, bulldozers, graders and loaders are busy preparing the approaches, the on and off ramps along with almost 5 miles of highway that will be reconstructed or rehabilitated.

There are 1100 people working on that project and it has another two years to run – and it is only one of many thousands of projects being worked on around the country right now – with more to come. They will not all be as interesting bridge building – however, if you’re prepared to look a little closer, you will always find something interesting about them.

Heavy equipment could help build roads or bridges without carefully trained operators to control the equipment. You can join the heavy equipment workforce by undertaking a training program that has been accredited by industry – the people who do the hiring the firing. ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools are accredited to deliver training and can help you get your career as a heavy equipment operator off to a flying start.

A story from late last year caught my attention as it gave another example of some of the interesting jobs that crane operators get. The story related to a polar bear that had decided to camp out at the bottom of the 17 foot dry moat. There were stairs leading back to its habitat but it decided it was happier in the moat.

Milwaukee County Zoo officials thought otherwise and tried everything to lure it back to it habitat. They finally decided to call on a crane operator. He called in a 50 ton hydraulic telescopic-boom truck crane. The crane operator lowered a cage filled with tempting fish in an attempt to lure the polar bear in. Once again zoo officials were frustrated – the bear didn’t want any of the treats.

Finally, the zoo vet tranquilized the polar bear. It took ten men to lift the bear into the cage so the crane operator could bring it back up to the bear’s habitat area. For a job, it sure beats lifting timber off a truck. Imagine going home to the kids and telling them you had to lift a polar bear today?

Okay, so those sorts of jobs don’t come up all that often. You would, however, be surprised at the kind of jobs mobile crane operators do have to do. If you think crane operations are for you then contact ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools. ATS is accredited to deliver crane operator training and to conduct formal assessments that will enable you to become a certified crane operator. You may not get to lift a polar bear, but then again, you just never know – the life of a crane operator can be very interesting.