Students Get Hands-On Experience at Heavy-Equipment Operator Academy

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Students Get Hands-On Experience at Heavy-Equipment Operator Academy

Courtesy of Media Services

Working Hard - Students in the AHEOTA timber program operate timber harvesting equipment at a site near Lacy south of Monticello..

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Media Services

Learning to operate a bulldozer or log skidder requires hands-on experience – lots of hands-on experience.

That’s exactly what students at the Arkansas Heavy Equipment Operator Training Academy (AHEOTA) in Warren are receiving thanks to a $1.62 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor and the generosity of Silvicraft Inc., of Monticello.

The AHEOTA is housed at the Southeast Arkansas Community-Based Education Center in Warren and administered by the University of Arkansas at Monticello College of Technology-McGehee. The program provides heavy equipment operator training on both construction and timber harvesting equipment. The timber program is the first of its kind in Arkansas.

Twenty-four students in the two AHEOTA programs have been working at two different sites operating a variety of heavy equipment. Twelve students in the AHEOTA construction program recently spent one month clearing 15 acres of land at the site of the planned Intermodal Facility near Wilmar. Students operated bulldozers, trackhoes, backhoes, motor graders, loaders and dump trucks.

At a second site near Lacy, students in the AHEOTA timber program operated logging equipment on a timber stand donated by Silvicraft. Students used a rubber-tired feller-buncher, log skidder and a log loader with a pull-through de-limber.

The heavy equipment training program meets a growing need in the state and region, according to Bob Ware, vice chancellor of the UAM College of Technology-McGehee.

“There are really unlimited opportunities for trained and certified heavy equipment operators,” Ware said. “With a shortage of heavy equipment operators and the equipment growing more technologically advanced, heavy equipment operation has become a financially rewarding career. The best trained and most experienced operators get the best jobs.”

For more information about the AHEOTA, contact the UAM College of Technology-McGehee at (870) 222-5360 or SEACBEC in Warren at (870) 226-6930.

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©The Voice 2006
Revised 01/13/2008 03:22:31 PM — http://www.uamont.edu/Organizations/TheVoice/4_12/aheota.htm