IT IS ABOUT TIME WE ACTED OUR AGE

By anyone’s calendar the concrete pumping industry is now “old enough to vote”. Most industries have, by this time, developed a gauge or standard by which it judges it’s self. What is wrong with us?

There is no functioning apprentice program for the concrete pumping industry in the USA. A true apprentice program; one with hours of classroom study as well as properly supervised on the job activity has not been part of our history. Sadly, I don’t see it in our future. How are we as an industry to ‘grow’ tomorrow’s operators? What are we as an industry doing to protect our co-workers and customers from ‘less than professional’ behavior of a newly minted operator?

The time to act is behind us; the time to react is right now.

I propose a Standard of Competency and Understanding by which all concrete pump operators be tested before they may operate a concrete pump with out qualified supervision. The days and concept of the old blind leading the new blind has led us into the unenviable situation we are in today. When the insurance industry runs from us and treats us like second class citizens we should get the message: Train better! For those nay sayers that question where the money will come from I say; “Raise your prices to cover the cost of a proper education for your operators.” Think of it as a responsibility tax on your next purchase.

If we wish to keep government regulation separate of our internal regulation; it is time to do more than create a safety test to certify an otherwise unqualified individual to operate a concrete pump.

I suspect that this letter will be met with distain by many pump owners. My intent is not to degrade but to advance the professionalism of the concrete pumping industry in the United States. If it must be said to initiate action; then I say it. The emperor has no clothes.

Incase no one noticed… When Don Taylor left the industry… it hurt.

There have been various and disjointed efforts to achieve this goal. There are today, companies actively working on this. They are to be commended. Even if the reason is as self serving as to lower their insurance expense; the effect is more far reaching and positive.

I did some work on the “Pumping Concrete: Techniques and Applications” book for Don and had high hopes at the time that it would be used as a text to train operators. But that did not pan out.

We need a united, industry wide, standard.

Great subject Bob.

I am a Canuck as most know, we have a night course in our local high school. Learn a concrete pump. I never looked into it but it seems some firm has taken the step to approach a school and set up a course.

Interesting indeed, also a fellow was trying to setup a pumpping school, as a 1 or three month course, pretty pricey to say the least and time.

Our system in our province does not seem interested or wants to call it a trade, but when asked on a legal form they say concrete pump operator, go figure.

Our in company training can take 3 months, then again it can take 3 weeks, pending on IQ. Pretty patient but putting out some well knowledged operators. We teach mix designs also as our ready mix has 1000 active formulas. I wish the same thing also, as it would define an operator. We do see alot of untrained operators that lease machines and are quite scary. It only brings the labour officials down on the trained firms and can choke us with exterordinary rules. Not that they have but the day is comming.

And to answer your specific question:

YES, to the extent that I am able I will work on these issues with like minded people.

Slavedattler ,

My take is that we do not need a school, we need a standard curriculum by which all training and knowledge is judged and tested.

Bob

No.

Some of us stayed at the Pumpco express.

Some of us stayed at the B&B express

Some of us stayed at the Action express

AD INFINITUM................................

That we could at least stay at the SAME Holiday Inn, or wherever would be a start. I have done a lot of research and writing about "Teaching the Teachers". One of the  salient points of that area of study is the mechanics of how Adults learn (as opposed to children). It is a :

Demonstrate / Explain / Watch / Question / Test

On the part of the teacher or mentor. So according to the people that best know the correct way to impart knowledge to adults; at least some time must be spent at the Holiday Inn Express to complete and document the process.

The experience level, ability to communucate an idea and the ability to listen and understand the real question are all necessary to properly teach someone else how to operate a concrete pump. Just because Jimmy Joe Bob also runs a 38 meter is not even close to a reason to have him in a position of training operators.

True oh how true.

Alot of companies cannot afford to send someone away to a school.  I think with the advances of modern technologies we will soon be able to have a "school" on the internet.  We all can sign up and log into the course or seminar.  We can watch and listen to the instructor on video, ask questions, answer questions, give feedback, back and forth, and then at the end of the seminar we can take the test....kind of a go-no go process....then the instructor can travel to the pumpers company and observe his skills and sign off as "certified concrete pumper".....who better to do this than at the "Concretepumping.com" studio in Todd's garage and some of the experts here (Bob immediately come to mind) submitted course content....THIS CAN BE DONE....and I think all the pump companies should get behind something like this....

when I was an instructor at Drill Instructor School in San Diego, we used  the ISD process.....the first step was identifying a need, well, we all see the need...now we need to get it going.

How did it all start for crane operators?

OSHA & insurance mandate

Outside influences I hope we can do without.

Der-Putz

I was a (simulate yelling) less than human and lower than whale sh@t  maggot at the

University (of)

Science

Music (and)

Culture

in Sep-Oct-Nov of 1964  semper-fi ;~)

Amen

first things first. you have to learn how to pump concrete. that means line pumping. second learning to drive. third learning to control various booms-putz and schwings. there are still some out ther that aren't in the universal pattern.

i propose a minimum of 1000 hours on  a trailer pump before an operator can be considered for a boom pump. that means 1000 WORKING/OPERATING hours on a line pump. i.e. not being a hose man on a crew. no offense but they don't know how to OPERATE a pump.

second, when it comes to driving, a new driver should have at least 4 weeks of driving time with another operator before they are sent out on their own. with those 4 weeks comes experience in learning how to set up and operate the pump properly ,gradually. meaning; the first week he acts as an oiler basically. second week he is operating with the senior guy next to him. third and fourth week operating by himself with the senior guy helping out behind the pump.

and before he is unleashed on his own he should have an acapa card for whatever pump he is operating. and then when it's time to go to the next size pumps he gets an endorsement for that and so on until he gets to the top pump.

my feeling is that an operator who is only qualified to operate a 24m should not be sent out on a 45m. and i speak from experience on that one.

also, no offense to any former ready mix drivers out there, but just because you have a commercial drivers license ,it doesn't mean you can automatically operate a concrete pump. there are too many of these guys out there who don't know the finer points of pumping doing the job and not doing it safely. i think we need to be regulated by the acpa AND osha. there's just not a lot of intelligence going on out there. and a lot of these guys are doing jobs that they should'nt be. in turn it makes it tough for us operators who aren't willing to put our lives at risk for a few yards of concrete. the one i always hear is "well so and so would do that." or "maybe i should just call (competitiors name here)." the reason i bring this up is because those of us who came up through the ranks and learned how to do this job the hard way are getting reputations as operators who don't want to work with the customer,and that puts our livelyhood at risk. also form experience. (i live in la and am being forced to work outside of stockton. you can't begin to fathom that commute. yuck)

sorry i'm off of my soap box now.

THIS IS WHY WE NEED SOME TYPE OF ORGANIZATION TO HAVE GUIDELINES IN SAFETY,TRAINING,BENEFITS,SO AS AN INDUSTRY WE CAN BRING MORE PEOPLE INTO THE INDUSTRY,WHO ARE PROPERLY TRAINED.AS OF NOW COMPANIES ARE GIVEN CONCRETE PUMPING 101 AND TURNING ALOOSE VERY POORLY TRAINED OPERATORS AND HAVING TO MAKE PAYMENTS ON EQUIPMENT THINK THEY ARE JUSTIFIED IN DOING SO.IN TURN THEY OFFER FEW BENEFITS,POOR PAY,POOR TRAINING=MORE ACCIDENTS   

Bob,

 There is a concrete pumping school. It is in Stapley, MN I believe. I am not sure about that. Somewhere North of Brainerd. At Brundage Bone we are starting BBCU. It will be a full safety program along with schooling. One person will be in charge in each region and travel from branch to branch educating poor s.o.b.

you go bob it starts withthe owners

As usual, B&B is out front and leading the pack. I liked your add in the pumping mag re: BBCU.

If you and you and you are not doing something inside your company to create this "culture of safety" you are making a giant mistake. Even if you, as owners, would rather spend your money on insurance than wages you can not. It is not good business, it is not in your customers best interest and it is not fair to your employees.

SAFETY STARTS AT THE TOP