ITI Forms Certification Training Partnership with Shephard’s
September 20, 2011 — Industrial Training International (ITI), Woodland, Wash., has formed a working partnership
with Shephard's Industrial
Training Systems Inc.,
ITI will perform the
training and certification, while Shephard’s will market the program. The first
workshop is being offered this week, and includes test preparation training and
written and practical exams.
Shephard’s specializes
in material handling safety assessments and site-specific equipment training
programs, while ITI offers crane and rigging training and certification. Mike
Parnell, ITI president and CEO, calls the partnership a “dual attack on
providing training and certification.â€
Shephard’s and ITI hope
to have 14 to 16 participants in September and October workshops, and plan to
market to a national audience beyond
October.
ITI has a similar
working partnership and licensing agreement with Northern Industrial Training
out of Palmer,
He sees a critical need
for certification all over the country and cites figures in the range of 40,000
to 60,000 operators who are not currently certified—even though the industry has
until 2014 to undertake the OSHA-mandated process. “There are a lot of ‘sleeper’
small construction companies, with five-, 10-, 15-man organizations with a boom
truck and two or three guys running it. You add that up and you get 5,000,
6,000, 8,000 [non-certified operators] easily there.â€
OSHA’s perspective on
what constitutes construction is what dictates who must be certified, says
Parnell. Look for more discussion on this topic in the “Crane Talk†in the
November issue of Crane Hot
Line magazine.
Last October, ITI established a training
center in
