14.05.2021

Manitowoc crawlers for US college

The Heavy Equipment College of America (HEC) has taken delivery of two Manitowoc 100 tonne MLC100-1 lattice boom crawler cranes from local dealer H&E Equipment Services.

The MLC100-1 has a 61 metre main boom plus a 18.3 metre jib, which can be offset by up to 30 degrees, and offers a maximum tip height of 73.2 metres. Launched in 2018, the crane was designed for rapid and easy set up without assist cranes. It features Manitowoc’s wider cab and its CCS Crane Control System which the company claims will be similar for students who may have operated military equipment or played video games.

Located at its training centres in Stonecrest, Georgia and Oklahoma City, the cranes will be used by students to practice crane set-up, lift planning, load dynamics, rigging and signalling as part of the NCCCO-accredited three week course, which can be taken after students successfully pass the college’s three week mobile crane course.
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HEC has taken delivery of two Manitowoc MLC100-1 crawler cranes

HEC president Bob Albano, said: “The total focus of our business is addressing the skills gap in blue collar training and placing people in jobs. That means having new equipment to train on that will help students gain the best experience. The MLC100-1 units are sophisticated and natural for learning on. We have an instructor with 20 years of experience that says these units are much easier to teach on because they can customise and fine tune the operations to enable students to get used to operating them.”
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The majority of students are either army veterans or millennials

“The inside of the MLC100-1 cab is like being in a cockpit. It isn’t pulling levers and pulleys like when I started out. The CCS utilises computers screens and joysticks. All of our students are in a transitional phase of their lives, and we know that many of them are at home. They are highly connected people and it’s very likely that they are engaged with technology.”

The Heavy Equipment College of America is the only Department of Education accredited school for crane operator training. H&E Equipment Services has supplied more than 15 Manitowoc and Grove cranes to the organisation across its six training locations throughout the US.