Certification of Crane Operators

I am a crane and rigging specialist for a major insurance company, a Certified Safety Professional, and have 16 years experience as a crane operator including 3 years where I owned my own crane service. I totally support upgrading the professionalism of crane operators. When I conduct training sessions it is amazing how little people know about proper crane procedures.

I have been in training sessions with my supervisors, as a crane operator, and those supervisors could not compute simple load chart problems. The days of "we've been doing it that way for 20 years and never had an accident" are gone. Licensing is not the answer. Licensing would be run by government agencies concerned with providing a job for themselves and collecting money. Independent third party testing of competency by a not for profit agency is the solution, in my opinion.

The NCCCO is doing just that right now. The NCCCO is performing a very large job with only 3 paid staff people, everyone else involved is a volunteer. There will be problems with such a large project and such a small staff, they will be straightened out as soon as possible. Also, yes I am one of those volunteers.
Dave R.

June 15, 2001 Response to the above: I couldn't agree more. Even half way around the world the problems are the same, over here (Australia) we have technical colleges pumping out "qualified crane operators and riggers" after 5 days of schooling, in other words, where's your money, here's your ticket.

We have seen an upturn in the number of construction deaths related to crane accidents and I agree with Dave when he says that the way we did it 20 years ago has no relevance in todays highly technological work arena. Will be checking out the site on a regular basis, keep up the great work.