According to experts, infrastructure construction and engineering are booming. The Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act (IIJA) is providing $1 trillion-plus in revenue opportunities for engineering and contractors to take on infrastructure projects.

Experts anticipate infrastructure construction to surpass residential construction as the mainstream of revenue for construction companies with large public investments being made readily available. In the past, there has been an underfunding of infrastructure projects, so there is much catching up to do and this provides states, counties, and towns with the opportunity to develop their infrastructure in a way to benefit their communities and businesses.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has released statistics showing that there is a $2.59 trillion gap in investing in infrastructure during the last decade. That means the current state of infrastructure is lacking and the current funding gives government bodies the opportunity to correct problems and improve infrastructure systems.

Where to get training?

With the increase in infrastructure construction and the IIJA funds, there will be an increased need for qualified construction workers. That means that well-trained construction workers are definitely in demand. Workers who can operate different kinds of heavy equipment as well as those who can handle hand tools are a necessity.

If you have not undergone the proper training, you should consider enrolling in a school that offers extensive training in the construction trade. You need to be trained in all aspects of the trade, including safe operation and OSHA guidelines. Contact us for details about our different construction training programs.

Associated Training Services is open and operating! Classes start every three weeks. We are taking all necessary precautions regarding your safety and health. We are excited about the opportunity to help you become a well paid heavy equipment operator, mobile crane operator, tower crane operator, rigger, CDL truck driver, or horizontal directional drill operator!

What Makes ATS Different?

• Large variety and volume of equipment – over 75 pieces
• Training that correlates to real-life experience
• Hands-on training
• Experienced, professional instructors
• Nationally recognized credentials
• Stability – in business for 60 years
• Easy tuition financial assistance programs
• Affordable school-owned housing
• VA approved
• Specialized training for your company
• High customer satisfaction

So if this is the right career path for you and you want to find out more about what ATS can offer, please visit our main website www.operator-school.com and request a free brochure.

One of the things that makes this country great is that it has always been a land of opportunity, and while the economics of the world change and affect us, those opportunities still remain. That is why we have such amazing provisions as the Universal Displaced Worker Program to help people recover from such issues.

It is sad, but true, that some industries have been slowly dying in the U.S., and when plants close, or jobs simply disappear due to lack of demand, it leaves those workers in a difficult situation. Many have specific skills that are no longer needed, and this can lead to them taking lower-paid, unskilled jobs, a spiral that reduces their income but also affects communities, with lower taxes paid overall and less money available to spend in local businesses. When a major employer falls in this way, the long-term effect can destroy whole communities, but it doesn’t have to be that way. That is why it is so important for the government to deliver programs to help in these cases, it is not just individuals affected, it can be the end of entire regions.

Getting people into well-paid jobs and starting new careers is key, and retraining is an essential part of that process for them to get back on their feet again. That is where the government program comes in, providing state funding for those displaced workers looking to retrain for a new career. State grants for training are available through the Employment and Training Administration of the Department of Labor, and they are designed to help displaced workers fund training that provides valuable new in-demand skills for a new career.

At ATS we are proud to be part of that, and it can help you sort through your funding options and the assistance that the displaced worker programs can offer. State funding is available for qualifying displaced workers across our range of courses, which provide the skills you need to build a successful career as a heavy machinery operator, crane operator, or other construction opportunities.

Our courses offer a fast, effective route into that new career, with in-demand skills that provide well-paid, stable, and reliable career paths for our students. Featuring both on-site and in-classroom learning, we prepare our students with the skills they need, but also the real-world experience that prepares them for the job. We can help you ensure your displaced worker funding sets you on the right path for a rewarding, successful new career in a vibrant, growing industry with a real future.

There’s a lot of big machinery out there, and that means heavy equipment operators are working. Heavy equipment is a category of machinery that is designed to do big jobs that involve moving things that are too big or bulky to move any other way. The types of heavy equipment ATS trains students on include:

• Backhoes
• Scrapers
• Bulldozers
• Graders
• Skid Steer Loaders
• Wheel Loaders
• Excavators
• Off-Road Haul Trucks
• Front End Loaders
• All-Terrain Forklifts

Each machine is a little bit different because it is designed to do specific jobs. But heavy equipment operators don’t just learn to operate a variety of equipment because sitting in the driver’s seat is only one part of the job description. Operators are trained to know how to properly inspect their equipment for safety and maintenance purposes. They learn how to monitor materials, events, and environment so the changes in the job site are adapted to and everyone stays safe. The job of a heavy equipment operator changes the world around them, so the operator needs to understand what to do in a changing environment.

Operators Do More Than Drive

Heavy equipment operators also understand their machine and the regulations it falls under. There are lots of laws covering the skilled trades industries because this is a dangerous career — not just anybody can operate this machinery safely. Employers look for well-trained heavy equipment operators because it is cheaper in the long run even though the wage guidelines are good in this career. It’s cheaper for the employer because the job gets done professionally and safely.

Heavy equipment operators do an important job that cannot safely be done by an untrained person.

There will always be a need for storm clean up crews because there will always be storms, right? Whether it’s a summer tornado in the midwest, or a hurricane hitting the coast, El Niño causing problems or a classic Nor’easter hitting major cities — somebody has to be able to move a lot of debris. That means a piece of heavy equipment in most cases, and a skilled operator able to do the job in unstable conditions.

Many Types of Heavy Equipment Used After A Storm

What does it take to restore a storm-damaged area? Here’s a list of the usual:

• excavators
• dozers
• track loaders
• wheel loaders
• cranes
• dump trucks
• backhoes
• and many more

The Right Equipment Is Useless Without The Right Operator

As impressive as heavy equipment is for getting an overwhelming job done, it takes a well-trained operator to do it safely and competently. Without the operator, that equipment is useless. Nobody knows when the next big storm will hit, but you know it will. In the meantime, a good heavy equipment operator is usually working away on a job site somewhere, earning a paycheck and honing skills.

When the need arises, that heavy equipment operator is ready to be part of the emergency cleanup crews who are desperately needed. Not all of those jobs are volunteer, either! Many operators make good money doing this service.

How can you be ready for this opportunity? By clearing some room on your calendar for training. ATS has training classes in heavy equipment, crane, and truck driving starting every three weeks, all year long. By the time the next storm comes rolling through, you could be ready.

Winter is here, and heavy equipment operators all over the country are doing some work on the side plowing snow for local businesses and other facilities. If you’ve been asked to plow the parking lot since you know how to operate heavy equipment, do some homework first so you don’t run into trouble.

When Plowing, Where Does The Snow Go?

Before you even start plowing, make sure you know where all that snow is to be piled. It doesn’t make sense to push it against the building or block handicap parking. Think about future snowfalls, too. You want to make room for additional snow if things get crazy.

Another point to consider is visibility. Piles of snow that seem okay to you because you are high on the plow can block visibility for somebody in a low car trying to get into the street safely.

Think about what will happen when it melts. Drains and catch basins need to stay clear so they can deal with the flooding. This is why the snow against the building is a bad idea; people don’t like water in the basement.

Plan Snow Removal Carefully

It’s a good idea to have a plan when doing snow removal. Sidewalks can get shoveled into the lot, then the plow will take care of the snow piles. If a lot of snow is expected, a steady repeated skimming is a lot better than waiting for it to stop before you start plowing. By that time, people have had to drive in it and things get more tricky.

Be careful plowing next to curbs and beside parked cars. You don’t want to do any damage to property!

Get The Best Heavy Equipment Operator Training

If you have done your training at ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Training School, you’ve been exposed to a lot of different types of equipment. This really helps when the opportunity to make some extra money comes up but you have to use the church’s snow plow/tractor combo to do it. The more experience you have with different kinds of snow plow setups, the easier it is to do a good job as a part-time snow plow operator.

The right techniques with the machine plus the right plan for removing the snow make you a person in demand this winter.

If you spend any time at all on heavy equipment operator forums, you’ll see someone mention that “you need a bubble in your butt” to be a successful operator of machines like excavators, backhoes, and anything that is used on uneven sites. What are they talking about?

The Ability To Know You Are Level

One of the basic tools in most toolboxes is a level. These essential tools are useful for anything that needs to be accurately level, and before there were apps, these levels used a bubble of air in a colored liquid inside a tube of glass with lines on it. You lined up the bubble with the lines by moving the thing you were leveling. Since the bubble doesn’t actually move because it’s a bubble of air and stays on top of the water, it acts as a focal point to orient things around.

Levels with bubbles are used to park RVs level so the refrigerator runs right, and to make sure concrete is level so the building isn’t crooked. You will see levels with bubbles used in a lot of different industries because it’s a simple, accurate way to ensure leveling perfection. And the bubble in the butt of the heavy equipment operator is the instinctive leveling tool that senses when you are operating on a slope.

Seat-of-the-Pants Training

One of the biggest reasons ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Training School insists on seat-of-the-pants experience during the training process is that you can’t exactly teach how to sense when the machine is level. It has to be experienced, learning how to sense what is going on around you and safely making mistakes so you can see when you are not level.

The best heavy equipment operations programs provide on-the-seat training with a variety of machinery along with the knowledge to become competent and professional. The “bubble in your butt” is a good thing because it means you have one of the most basic skills needed to do your job.

As the winter season hits, heavy equipment operators in various parts of the country have opportunities to do some incredibly important service to the community. Whether you act as a volunteer or pick up some part-time income, dealing with storm damage is something that not everyone can do.

Storm Prep And Cleanup Are Needed

In some areas, crews are out trimming trees away from power lines in the hope that this year won’t be quite as catastrophic as the previous winter outages were for the region. Out west, snow has already closed some mountain roads and plows are out. It takes a skilled operator to maneuver big machinery in treacherous conditions because the operator must be completely familiar with the way their machine responds.

An experienced heavy equipment operator is one of the most important workers in the challenges of storm damage cleanup, and those who have the certifications and skills to provide these essential services will be deeply appreciated. Much of the estimated cost in a storm’s aftermath is the pay that the crews get to put things back the way they need to be.

Be Ready To Respond In Any Season

ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Training School is one of the best in the business. We have a solid reputation for providing the training that gives our graduates a competitive edge in their industry. Because our heavy equipment operation programs include experience at the controls of many different types of equipment, it’s not difficult to find ways to put that experience to work.

Did you think that heavy equipment operators only work in the summer? Wrong! They work all year round.

It’s true that many construction and highway workers can get laid off during the winter months, but if you are willing to work in the winter, there’s a lot of work available. Every parking lot, and street, that gets snowed on will need to be plowed, right? Even if you aren’t working for the Highway Department, there will often be part-time work available with organizations that need a reliable person to keep their pavement clear.

But it isn’t just plowing snow that’s required, because there’s a lot more to getting roads and parking areas clear than plowing. If you have your CDL, some experience, and are willing to obtain a Tanker endorsement you could drive a truck that carries chemicals for de-icing. Operators are needed for rollers, tractors, front-loaders, hi-lifts, and more. It all depends on the area and what the weather is like in the winter.

A lot of material is needed for salt trucks and spreaders, so a lot gets loaded and moved to various strategic points. Ice storms come through and make opportunity for tree removal jobs or disaster cleanup. Winter weather causes big problems and it takes big machinery to keep things moving along.

Getting trained as a heavy equipment operator now means you’ll be ready when the snow flies, even if you have been laid off from your regular job. It’s a good backup plan, but it’s also a good career path because heavy equipment operators really do have work all year long.

Why have there been so many construction accidents in the past few years? A recent article on Equipment World’s site by Wayne Grayson takes a look at the problem. OSHA official: Further increase in construction deaths likely; triggered by uptick in activity, less-experienced workers is a sobering assessment of safety on the jobsite.

“We recently investigated deaths at job sites in Kansas City, Missouri; Framingham, Massachusetts; Brookhaven, Georgia; Bellevue, Washington and Albuquerque, New Mexico,” said Dean McKenzie, the deputy director of OSHA’s directorate for construction. “And that was just one week.”

While this is appalling, the answer is pretty obvious to OSHA. The agency tries to make sure that employers and employees know the safety regulations and follow them so that accidents don’t happen as regularly. But those employers and employees have to be trained, and they have to respect their training. For example, the company doing the demolition of a three-and-a-half-story building in Connecticut had to be stopped before workers were injured:

“It was a brick building built in the early 1900s that they were trying to rehabilitate. The contractor had taken all the interior floor joists that tie the building together so all he had was a brick box,” McKenzie said. “Compliance officers called our engineering office to get our support on how weak this structure would really be and we shut it down until the job could be done safely.”

Imagine the operator of heavy equipment on that job, hoping that the building wouldn’t collapse on top of the work crew. Maybe he even was the guy who called in OSHA when the contractor wouldn’t listen, who knows? What we do know is that the better trained the operators of heavy equipment are, the safer everybody is. There’s a lot of dangerous stuff that happens in construction, and good training keeps it happening safely.

ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Training School works hard to make sure that our graduates are fully aware of the safety regulations and know how to operate their machine to do the job without any injuries. We want you to have a long, profitable career as a heavy equipment operator known for your expertise and safe practices.