Heavy equipment trains indoors

FISHHOOK — As Ken Peltier leads the way to the training arena he’s been working on for the past four years, he makes a crack about how bright it gets inside.

“We’re going to own stock in the light bulb factory,” he said.

There are fancier buildings on the grounds of the Alaska Operating Engineers/Employers Training Trusts’ new facility on a former farm off Palmer-Fishhook Road close to Hatcher Pass.

The 12,000-square-foot of training rooms and the state-of-the-art equipment simulators have prettier interiors. The mechanic shop has welding bays and tools.

But this 16,000-square-foot warehouse with a dirt floor is what Peltier is most proud of. It solves a big problem that people like him, in the business of training heavy equipment operators, have always faced in Alaska. Since you can’t dig into frozen ground, construction season necessarily lasts from spring to fall. Until the trust built the arena, that was also the only time you could train people to run the machines.

The dirt floor in the arena doesn’t freeze, giving the trust the ability to “not try to train everybody in the spring when the ground thaws and everybody’s ready to go,” Peltier said.

The trust is a partnership between the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 302 and the Alaska chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America. It’s put together to train new heavy equipment operators, mechanics and crane operators, as well as provide ongoing training for people already in the union.

Peltier, the administrator for the trust, said it was especially significant for him to move from the old facility along the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

“I was in the very first mechanics class at the old site 21 years ago,” he said. He never thought then he’d be in charge, let alone in charge when the whole thing moved to bigger, nicer digs. “It’s overwhelming.”

The arena isn’t exactly a new idea. Union locals in other areas of the country — like Chicago and Ohio — have similar facilities. But it’s the first of its kind in Alaska.

Peltier said the question he always gets is, “How is the trust going to heat a building that size all winter?”

The solution, he said, is simple.

“You just don’t heat it,” he said. Keeping the ground covered under a roof is good enough. “After you’ve agitated it, it just doesn’t freeze.”

A bigger problem, he said, is air circulation. Six pieces of heavy equipment could potentially be running under that roof at the same time. That’s a whole lot of exhaust, necessitating some large, industrial air suckers and blowers. Peltier said they’re connected to sensors that turn them on automatically to clear the air.

He said there will be some growing pains as the trust learns to use the arena and works out the kinks.

“I’d rather just deal with them than be afraid to build one,” he said.

The arena has been up for some time now, but the classroom spaces were finished in July. The first set of classes will begin in the fall.

Peltier said the 12 weeks of training for new students is free. The trust flies them in, houses them at the Valley Hotel, feeds them and doesn’t charge for their schooling. They do have to pay to join the union after they graduate, but can make payments on that $900 fee over the course of multiple months. After that they pay their union dues and contribute to the training fund.

That training fund, he said, is the reason the trust was able to build the facility on its own.

“We didn’t get a grant from someone to build this,” he said.

BY THE NUMBERS

• Square footage of training arena: 16,000.

• Square footage of classroom building: 12,000.

• Cost to build it: $8 million.

• Employees of the training trust: 11 full-time, as many as 20 when needed.

• Number of classes each year (both current and prospective operators): 800.

• Cost of training simulators: $16,000 to $30,000.

• Amount the school spends local each year: $800,000 to $1 million.

• Amount of that spent on fuel: $100,000.

• Number of brand-new apprentices produced each year: 15-30.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.