Sixteen students in a career/technical education class from Harnett Central High School in Angier, N.C., had a chance to learn about the crane industry firsthand in a two-hour class led by crane experts at ALL Carolina Crane & Equipment.
Harnett Central High School teacher Benny Enzor brought the group of 11th and 12th graders to All Carolina in Raleigh, N.C., as a real-life experience to supplement their semester segment on the crane industry. The students’ material covered cranes, rigging, hand signals, and load charts. Brandon Owens, general manager of All Carolina Crane & Equipment, led the two-hour class, along with Safety Director Mike Ayers and crane operators Craig Reed, Seth Thomas, Bo Gallagher, and Nathan Hall.
Brandon Owens led the students on a tour of the crane yard, after which Mike Ayers presented a slide show demonstrating different types of cranes, rigging, and applications with props such as nylon rigging and chokers. Owens had a 165-t all terrain crane set up in the yard and used it to demonstrate how to inspect rigging.
Then he gave each of the students a rigging card showing all the hand signals that crane signalpersons use during a lift. He asked for a student volunteer to use the hand signals to offload a crane counterweight from a trailer and place it on cribbing 25 feet away. The four ALL crane operators did the rigging and tag line, while the student volunteer did the hand signals under close supervision.
Ayers stopped the procedure several times to point out the possible hazards that can occur during flagging and rigging. “Then the crane operators told the students about some recent jobs they had done and told a few cool crane stories,” said Owens.
The up-close experience seemed to spark the students’ interest in a crane industry career, especially when Owens explained that crane technicians, drivers, and operators are in high demand. He told them that All branches offer a type of mobile crane training apprentice program for high school graduates.
Owens concluded the class with a brief overview of the All Family of Companies and presented each student with an All baseball cap. “Some of the students asked me about a career at ALL,” said Owens. “I’ll be looking forward to seeing some of them after graduation.”
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