The American Rental Association (ARA) launched the ARA Certified program series in March. Included among the landmark industry certification program offerings is essential training for mobile elevating work platforms (MEWPs) on the trainer side.
The ARA Certified MEWP Train-the-Trainer course qualifies graduates to train operators with instruction that satisfies OSHA (Occupational and Safety Health Administration) requirements and ANSI (American National Standards Institute) A92 standards.
The course includes online self-guided training through RentalU — ARA’s online education platform. Then, students are required to complete a four to five hour live, hands-on training session conducted by a certified master trainer.
The hands-on sessions are being presented by ARA state associations, and in June, the ARA of New York hosted the first live ARA Certified MEWP Train-the-Trainer events in Region One at:
- ABLE Equipment Rental, Deer Park, N.Y., on June 13, 2022
- Admar Supply Co., Cicero, N.Y., on June 15, 2022
“Even though I have been through several Train-the-Trainer courses, I wanted to take this class to have an alternative I could offer our employees and customers in the future,” says Dave Mansbart, product specialist/trainer, ABLE Equipment Rental, Deer Park, N.Y., and ARA of New York president. “We also wanted to increase our pool of trainers to handle the increase in trainings we have seen over the past few years.”
Mansbart identifies his biggest takeaways as the sophisticated setup of the online portion of the ARA Certified training and the instructional technique of the on-site master trainer, Kevin Gern, ARA vice president of education and risk management.
“I would highly recommend this program and not just for the quality of the training. The online portion was very interactive and gave different modes of learning, and then the way you can track the operators on RentalU is a huge plus. Kevin did a great job presenting the hands-on portion. He used a lot of personal experiences and interaction during the session, and I will do the same when I train others. I learned that the more I can get students involved in the training, they will learn and retain more of the information. I am looking forward to using this when the training is opened to our customers,” Mansbart says.
Mark DeLeon, operations and strategic client manager, PMT Forklift Corp., West Babylon, N.Y., also participated and was equally impressed with the material presented. “We took away a great deal of info and tips on thoroughness and efficiency,” he says. “The instructor was fantastic and left nothing unanswered. I would definitely recommend this program to other rental operators. We use two or three other off-the- shelf programs, and this is on par or above factory-level training.”
You can learn more about and get started with ARA Certified MEWP Train the Trainer at ARArental.org/MEWP.
ARA Certified also includes sales and service certification programs for those in the equipment rental industry. Learn more at ARArental.org/Certified.