Equipment Operator Training initiative wins problem-solving award at recent Leadership Summit

ITD employees selected a training program developed for ITD’s maintenance workers as the overall winner in the problem-solving category of the recent 2018 Leadership Summit.

Not only did it address an issue that impacted the majority of employees, but it also had a timeframe and path for future direction and a well-developed history of steps already taken.

The team voiced a common safety concern early on, for ITD workers and for inexperienced drivers on the road with them. “Say we put one of our guys with very little training behind the wheel of a $250,000 snowplow with all kinds of controls and gadgets. At the same time, there’s a young driver on the same road coming at that plow at 50 mph on a slick road in low visibility. That’s a recipe for disaster,” said team lead Steve Spoor, who is also ITD’s fleet manager.

“We hire new Transportation Techs with a broad spectrum of experience, from very little time in a truck, to a million miles plus,” said fellow Ops Training team member and D3 Safety & Compliance Officer Eric Copeland. “We hire farm kids, city kids, and everything in between.”

ITD has six regional districts statewide, with each trying to make sure new hires are ready to go when plow season gets here. “The problem is that we have had no consistency in training from crew to crew, foreman to foreman, district to district. Some crews/districts are great at training our new hires; some are not quite as good,” Copeland explained.

“The purpose of this leadership team was to develop a clear, concise, repeatable training program that could be duplicated across the department and to set a minimum training threshold for our new and current employees,” he added.

So, ITD developed an accredited cooperative training program with the Kootenai Technical Education Campus to provide a full 40 hours of training on selected equipment, with on-the-job training after that.

There will be two full-time certified instructors to handle ITD’s volume of workers. The two are Mike Stowell from District 4 and Chris Cunningham of District 3.

“An accredited training program that addresses operation and preventive maintenance of equipment is essential to insuring ITD employees have the necessary skills and knowledge to operate equipment safely,” Spoor explained.

Rather than try to get the training in before the snow flies this winter, or pull our workers off the frontlines and into the classroom just when they are needed most, the department will kick off the program starting March 1. There will be recertification required every five years.

Training initially will focus on dump trucks, snowplows, and loaders – three pieces of equipment heavily used by ITD maintenance forces.

Backhoes, forklifts, cranes, mowers, and pavers are also on the short list for the spring/summer.  ITD’s Step 3 TTOs will be used to conduct the on-the-job portion of the training, leveraging their skill and experience. Everyone who operates equipment independently is required to take the training, not limited to any Horizontal Career Path.

The team cautioned that this program will not immediately fix all of ITD’s equipment training shortfalls, but were encouraged that it provides a foundation to build on.

“This is the very first step of a thousand-mile journey. We have a good start; we just need to keep going,” Copeland said.

VIDEO: Watch HQ's Steve Spoor give a brief intro to the Equipment Operator Training at the recent Leadership Summit.

Published 11-02-18