Smith says the ultimate goal of every piling company
should be to have their operator(s) certified. Prior to the
availability of this course, Midwest Caissons, along with most
other piling companies, groomed ground team personnel to
take on the responsibility over time.
“We’d typically hire someone on the ground team and
develop them and coach them from that level and get them
into the seat eventually, but it’s not an overnight process,”
he said.
“If a drill rig operator hasn’t seen varying ground conditions
over the course of their crane operator employment,
how do they know how to deal with issues as they come up
and do it in a way that the product pile meets the standard
required by the structural and geotechnical engineers
on site?”
Since the program became available, all of Midwest
Caissons drill rig operators have become certified. Smith
notes that their final exam took place when they were working
on a major project for which schedule was key.
EDUCATION & TRAINING
“We have to have a certificate
to run a skid steer or a loader
and many other pieces of
equipment onsite. But you
take the biggest piece of
machinery out there and you
don’t need one. We felt we
needed to be in the forefront
to try and get our guys the
certification they all need to
do this job.”
– Todd Smith, Midwest Caissons
Three rigs on an air purging
for methane mitigation site
PILING CANADA 53