If you have read earlier posts you will know that I take a real interest in any heavy equipment that I see when traveling around. Today I was fascinated watching a backhoe move large concrete slabs into place. The whole process is a regular part of the job and only took an hour or so to complete – but it was still fascinating.

A backhoe is not a huge machine yet, for its size it can pack a punch. If I have a criticism of what I saw today it would be that the operator did more than the machine was really capable off. The concrete slab obviously weighed more than the recommended lifting capacity of the backhoe – the back wheels kept lifting of the ground as it tried to carry the slab. No problems – they simply loaded the bucket with rocks to act as a counterweight. Not a safe practice but a novel approach to the problem.

Carrying the slab was not a safe practice, however, the real interest to me came once the slab was close to being in place. Using the bucket, the operator was able to carefully nudge that concrete slab into place. It was like watching a child nudge a block against other blocks – a little nudge on the left, a nudge on the right, a final nudge at the back to slot it home. When I say nudges, they were very gentle nudges.

They put three of these large slabs into place – why they didn’t pour them in place I don’t know but I guess they had their reasons. That operator had probably had a few years experience yet a good backhoe operator training program would have produced similar results. Operating a backhoe is not as difficult as some people imagine – especially if you’re trained by a seasoned professional.

Are you considering a career as crane operator but worried about the cost? Why not check out the financial aid that may be available to help pay for your crane operator training. In fact, taking up a financial assistance package may be the best move you ever make. Crane operators are amongst the highest paid heavy equipment operators in the country which means your training will soon pay for itself many times over.

There are a number of different options available to you depending on your circumstances. There is government assistance available for some people all the way through to career loans available through the many financial institutions.

With loans through financial institutions, you can either approach them yourself or you can fill in one of our online application forms. ATS have several loan options, once we receive your application we can generally get back to you within 48 hours.

Government assistance may be available through the following programs:

• Workforce Investment Act (WIA)
• Department of Workforce Development
• Trade Adjustment Act (TAA)
• Displaced Workers
• Displaced Farmers
• Vocational Rehabilitation
• Tribal Education (BIA)
• Veteran’s Benefits (VA)

Crane operators enjoy good working conditions, a challenging job that rarely gets boring, a respected status amongst heavy equipment operators and construction workers in general, and lucrative pay schedule. Crane operator training is fairly intense with a strong focus on safety that is designed to prepare students to sit for the crane operator certification tests once training has been completed.

Financial aid is available to most people. If your next career move is into heavy equipment then contact us to determine what is available in the way of financial aid for crane operator training.

Changing careers can be a rather scary experience and this is particularly true if you try to do it without some type of job placement assistance. Before commencing training, your knowledge and life experiences have all centered around your previous career(s). For many just starting out in heavy equipment, they have little knowledge of the industry itself, let alone potential employers.

It’s not just knowing who the potential employers are. Once you have been in the industry for several years you become aware of who are good employers and who you need to steer away from. An industry specific job placement service already has this information – by the bucket load.

Training organizations such as ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools have been able to build a reputation, not over years, but over decades, for providing well trained operators to the industry. ATS have also seen employers come and go with the more successful businesses providing good employment opportunities for graduates.

As a graduate of ATS you are able to access their job placement service and take advantage of the wealth of knowledge and information they have been able to gather. There are employers that come to ATS when seeking new operators for their businesses. Why? Because of the reputation that ATS has.

If you are considering a career change to heavy equipment operations, be sure to check what post training assistance there is to help you find that first work opportunity. If they don’t offer a decent job placement service then I suggest you look at other training providers. The cost of heavy equipment training is not low – you need to ensure that every dollar you spend is used to its fullest -this includes making use of their heavy equipment job placement service.

There are a lot of highly skilled workers who spend their days driving trucks for a living. A commercial drivers license opens up many opportunities and if heavy equipment skills are added the opportunities get even wider.

One of the jobs that many truck drivers undertake is the pick up and delivery of heavy equipment. Truck drivers normally arrive at the pick up point, wait for someone to load the heavy equipment onto the truck then transport it to its destination. Once again they may be forced to wait until someone arrives to unload the equipment.

It’s a straight forward enough job for the truck driver – apart from the waiting. It would be far more more convenient if the truck driver could arrive at the pickup point and load the heavy equipment onto his truck himself. Likewise, once he gets to the end of his journey, then unloading the heavy equipment and moving on to the next job.

It makes sense and many truck drivers do undertake heavy equipment training to augment their work. They also find themselves in big demand with employers recognizing the value of employing multi-skilled workers. Being multi-skilled, you do of course open the door to a great many employment opportunities, the chief of which is the transportation of heavy equipment.

If you have a commercial drivers license and you are looking to add skills to your repertoire – consider training to become a heavy equipment operator. There is work available across the nation as both heavy equipment operators and as truck drivers. There is also a lot of work available for those who can do both.

One of the biggest advances in heavy equipment technology has not been in inventing something new, it has been in making the existing better. One area that has really seen improvements has been hydraulics. If you were to compare today’s heavy equipment with those of the 30 years ago, the biggest difference would be in how smooth and how fine the controls are now.

Thirty years ago, heavy equipment was cumbersome and awkward. It got the job done but there was a lot of grinding, shuddering and jerking that went on. Operators often climbed out of the cab (if it had one) at the end of the day feeling like they had been in huge vibration machine all day – in fact, they had.

Improvements to hydraulics have been huge. Using variable displacement pumps and closed center directional control valves, heavy equipment now runs smoothly. The vibrations have virtually disappeared, the shuddering and jerking replaced by smooth seamless movements. Operators now have the ability to operate their equipment to such fine degrees of measurement they can pick up an egg without breaking it or lower their buckets in fine increments so they are just touching the egg, again, without breaking it. This was impossible 30 years ago where ‘fine’ increments were measure in inches – several of them, not just one.

The benefits to an operator are immense. At the end of the day they don’t feel like they have been shaken to pieces. More importantly, they can perform their job with extreme accuracy to the point that other new technologies like laser guidance and GPS can be added. It’s pointless relying on laser guidance which requires accuracy to within fractions of an inch, if the equipment cannot perform to those standards. Today’s equipment can and does. Of course, that means heavy equipment training has changed and now focuses on using this new technology.

Being a heavy equipment operator is now one of the fine skills and brings with it a lot of job satisfaction. New heavy equipment technology, along with the improvements to existing technology, leads to better productivity – that’s a win-win for everyone involved in heavy equipment.

Are you a heavy equipment operator that needs to move their own equipment? If so, then a commercial drivers license (CDL) is the only way to go. A class-A commercial drivers license allows you to drive trucks on the public highways and is the trucking equivalent to a standard drivers license.

Truck driver courses go for three weeks and include both in classroom and hands on training. The object of the training is to give you the knowledge and skills that will enable you to pass your class-A commercial drivers license test. This knowledge includes road rules and safety along with skills required to safely and efficiently drive a truck.

On the road training includes highway driving, reversing and parking, along with the many other skills required to drive any vehicle, trucks in particular. ATS has over 45 years experience in truck driver training – in fact, truck driver training was the starting point for the business.

Over the past 45 years ATS has established an enviable reputation for providing skilled operators who generally have little trouble gaining their Class-A CDL. There are many heavy equipment operators trained by ATS in the workplace who have turned to us for help in achieving their Class-A CDL. The only reason they return is because the quality of the training has helped them succeed in their chosen career.

If you’re a heavy equipment operator looking to open up your career options, consider adding a class-A commercial drivers license to your set of skills. It will open more doors than you can imagine.

We often talk about heavy equipment and heavy equipment careers, but what machinery is actually included in that title? My first reaction is to ask ‘how long is a piece of string’ since it can be difficult to quantify what is or isn’t ‘heavy equipment’.

Generally speaking, most wheeled, or tracked, equipment that is involved with the movement of dirt could be classified as heavy equipment. This includes:

• Backhoes
• Wheel loaders
• Front end loaders
• Scrapers
• Excavators
• Bulldozers
• Road graders
• Rock trucks
• Skid Steers
• All-Terrain Forklifts

These are your standard line up of machinery in that category. There are also specialized machines that are used in some industries that are advanced forms of those listed. Mining and forestry are big users of specialized equipment – a good example would be one of the giant long line excavators – when I say giant, I really do mean giant.

When we talk about a career as a heavy equipment operator, it generally refers to a career operating one or more machines on that list. In fact, heavy equipment training gives you a feel for almost every one of those machines giving you the flexibility to choose your equipment after training.

Many operators remain proficient on a range of machinery thus providing flexibility for their employer. Good examples are the excavator, wheel loader and backhoe. The skills required for both the excavator and wheel loader are also related to the backhoe – three machines, three times as many employment opportunities – hence a heavy equipment career. Do you have a choice, or would you like the option of learning to operate a range of heavy equipment?

It doesn’t matter what trade you are in these days, you need a resume if you are looking for assistance from a job placement officer. Whether it is heavy equipment operations, crane operations or truck driving, it is the resume that first introduces you to any potential employers.

A good resume doesn’t have to be sophisticated, it really only needs three components:

Who you are: obviously a potential employer wants to know a little about you so a resume normally starts with your name and address and contact telephone number.

What you can do: this is the meat of your resume and one of the first places a prospective employer will go to. Knowing the skills and how to present them is important – the following is a brief but good example:

• Running, maneuvering, navigating, or driving equipment.
• Inspecting equipment, structures, or materials to identify the cause of errors or other problems or defects.

Your Qualifications: this is just a simple list of your qualifications and where and when you obtained them. This is where you would list and licenses such as a CDL or crane operators certificate.

Building a resume is not difficult and most job placement officers can help you out. What you need is a clear list of what you can do and what qualifications you hold. Job placement officers can help you find employment – you need to help them first and a good resume is a great start.

Heavy equipment careers are there for the taking right now with the demand on operators steadily rising. What is interesting is the world wide shortage of qualified and experienced operators. Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the Middle East are all experiencing operator shortages and those vacancies are often being filled at our expense.

I should qualify the above statement by adding that overseas interest is only in qualified operators that have had several years experience in their respective industries. Not that I am trying to dampen your enthusiasm for travel. However, if you don’t undertake quality training you will never gain the experience required and the appropriate references to verify your experience.

More importantly, this drain of talent is opening doors for the next generation who are looking at heavy equipment careers. There has been an added demand on skilled workers with the economic recovery packages that have increased funding for roads and other infrastructure projects. Whilst each state or region has been able to work cooperatively to stagger starts dates for many projects – they haven’t been in a position to cooperate on a national level. This means every state is drawing on that pool of skilled heavy equipment operators.

Heavy equipment careers are taking off both here and abroad. If your interested in a career operating heavy equipment then now is the time to undertake your heavy equipment training. You can be in the operating cab and on your way to a lucrative career in as little as three weeks.

As August rolls in there is one thing we know, winter is not that far away. Before you know it many of us will be knee deep in snow and grateful for the grader operators that are at least keeping our roads open. I also know one other thing, come winter, many areas will be calling for grader operators. It will be too late to start your training then, you have to prepare now for when that demand starts.

The counties in the north west are particularly vulnerable to road closures due to snow with most counties employing teams of grader operators to clear the roads. John Deere is one business that recognizes the importance of graders producing machines that specialize in snow clearing.

To be employed as a grader operator often required two things: recognized grader training and some experience in the field – not necessarily in snow, although it helps. By undertaking your grader training now, you will leave yourself with plenty of time to gain on-the-job experience operating a motor grader. There are ample opportunities in construction and road maintenance for new operators to gain experience – all that is missing is the training.

ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools can fill in that missing piece providing quality training in heavy equipment including motor graders. Many of our schools have motor graders – it’s simply a matter of contacting us to find out which school is closest to you.

You may think that work pushing snow is only limited to the coldest months of the year. That’s not true. Come the end of winter, demand for grader operators often increases as roads that were packed with snow during winter are cleared. This generally happens in spring as it all starts to melt and opens up roads previously only accessed by snowmobiles. In many cases, roads then need grading to repair the damage caused by ice and cold water. Graders can be in demand in some areas for up to five months each year with ongoing work then in highway construction and maintenance. The winter is calling – are you going to be one of our snow clearing grader operators?