March 6, 2023—CCO is honored to announce that 19 industry experts have been selected to develop a new certification program for evaluators of crane operators. CCO is developing the new certification in response to the OSHA requirements and at the request of the industry. With the creation of the program, CCO hopes to bring some clarity and uniformity to evaluations, to make evaluations more reliable and defensible, and to establish a “gold standard” for the qualification of crane operator evaluators.
OSHA has made it clear that the evaluators of operators need to be qualified and that being certified as a crane operator does not necessarily meet this requirement. This has resulted in employers largely self-qualifying evaluators of crane operators under varying approaches.
To create the strongest program possible, CCO has tapped into those who are currently acting as evaluators of crane operators to serve on the task force. The task force includes both experienced CCO contributors and new experts with more specialized knowledge, including those from construction contractors, unions, rental firms, training companies, and materials distributors:
- Chair: John Manes, Kiewit
- Joe Crews, Crews Crane Training International
- Bodie Faulks, PAR Electrical Contractors, LLC
- Matt Fegenbush, Barnhart Crane and Rigging
- Daniel Feidt, Stephenson Equipment
- Scott Frye, Buckner HeavyLift Cranes
- Tom Gordon, IUOE Local 14
- Jeff Hairston, RHTC, Inc.
- Craig Hautamaki, Colorado Crane Operator School
- Joseph Herzog, Herzog Construction LLC
- Brian Hope, Inspection & Training Solutions of America, Inc.
- Cameron Howitt, Crowder Construction Company
- Meagen Kehrt, Train for the Crane
- Gonzolo Lopez, PBF Energy Martinez Refinery
- George Pennington, East Coast Crane Inspecting, LLC
- Rob Shaffer, Densification, Inc.
- Chris Smith, Morrow Equipment Company
- Michael Spangler, ABC Supply Co. Inc.
- Chuck Wigger, Lamar Advertising Company
Like all other certification programs that CCO has developed, this new Evaluator of Crane Operators program will be built according to the same strict psychometric standards that are a hallmark of all CCO’s certification programs, resulting in a certification process that will be fair, valid, reliable, and legally defensible.