Masonry Magazine June 2011 Page. 42
INDUSTRY NEWS
For more information visit www.certification.masoncontractors.org.
Oldcastle Building Products Joins MCAA Strategic Partner Program
The MCAA has welcomed Oldcastle Building Products as a Strategic Partner. Oldcastle joins MCAA's Strategic Partners CavClear, EZ Scaffold, Indian Mill Corp., Non-Stop Scaffolding, The QUIKRETE Companies and SPEC MIX Inc.
The MCAA Strategic Partner Program allows suppliers to reach out to contractors through a large variety of methods including promotion throughout MCAA publications and events. To learn more, visit www.masoncontractors.org/strategicpartner. The MCAA looks forward to working with Oldcastle Building Products.
Save an average of 20 Percent
The MCAA partnered with BizUnite to offer the Marketplace as a no-cost, added-benefit for being a member of MCAA.
DANISH TOOL SHOP
Reciprocating
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Also available:
Brick'n'Block handsaws
Masonry reciprocating saw blades
Trimming tools for wood/aluminium
Masonry floats
www.danishtoolshop.com
READER SERVICE #270
The MCAA Marketplace gives you access to 40-plus business service programs, specifically designed to reduce costs and increase profitability. The MCAA Marketplace offers savings on payroll processing, office supplies, wireless services, industrial supplies and more. On average, members are saving 20 percent on operational expenses, and these savings can cover the cost of your annual membership while saving your business money. Access the MCAA Marketplace by visiting www.masoncontractors.org/perks, and enter your username and password to login and start saving.
Operating Engineers Local 150 Embraces Aerial Work Platform Program
The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 Training Center, located in Wilmington, III., recently joined the International Powered Access Federation (IPAF) and became an American Work Platform Training (AWPT) training center so they could offer training on the safe use of aerial work platforms (AWPs) to their membership. AWPT is the North American IPAF subsidiary whose training programs meet OSHA requirements and ANSI standards. They are based on IPAF's proven program, which is certified as conforming to ISO 18878 and is used in many countries throughout the world.
Pictured left to right: Thomas Spangler, Troy Butler, Glenn
Minyard, Martin Turek, Michael Rorex, Gary Riley, John Rickert,
Michael Drew and Stephen Walenkiewicz
Whether working as heavy equipment operators, heavy equipment mechanics, or other allied jobs, operating engineers are found on any project using construction equipment. And among the many types of equipment used on a jobsite, AWPs are rapidly becoming one of the most common. The expanded use of these machines by 150's members in large equipment maintenance, municipalities and general industry recently has grown exponentially.
After looking at a number of training methods and talking with other people in the industry, Local 150's Apprenticeship and Skill Improvement Program (ASIP) concluded that the programs offered by AWPT were the most thorough and provided their organization with the tools they needed to integrate aerial work platform training into their certification protocols.
AWPT offers the internationally recognized PAL Card (Powered Access Licensed-registration) to people who successfully complete a training program on a class of work platform equipment. They also provide a logbook for listing specific machine familiarization so union members have a way of showing that they had been trained on a particular piece of equipment. After joining IPAF and becoming an AWPT Training Center, Local 150 now has more than six AWPT-approved instructors on board, and they are beginning to offer training to their membership.
Local 150's training center is situated on more than 300 acres, has a 342,000-square-foot space housing 30 classrooms, an indoor training area, 200-seat auditorium, more than 200 pieces of heavy equipment, testing labs and much more. It serves union members throughout Northern Illinois, Eastern Iowa and Northern Indiana, and offers a variety of apprenticeship programs designed to provide journeypersons and apprentices with the necessary skills to acquire and maintain jobs in the many industries they serve. The site is open on a year-round basis and has full-time instructors available to the members six days a week, Monday through Saturday.