VOLVO SUPPORTS CUSTOMERS IN REACHING CO2 REDUCTION GOALS

Volvo CE Offers Tailored Support for Customers to Reach CO2 Reduction Goals

Volvo CE has developed a step-by-step approach with the CO2 Reduction Program to help customers realize their own unique goals toward carbon neutrality.

Creating a carbon-free future is only possible through collaboration. In a shared commitment to reduce its environmental impact, Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) is making it easier for customers to reach their own carbon reduction goals with personalized plans.

Taking advantage of the breadth of its existing solutions and services, Volvo CE has developed a step-by-step approach with the CO2 Reduction Program to help customers realize their own unique goals toward carbon neutrality. There is no one-size-fits-all solution and every customer’s business is different, which is why these tailored solutions offer a practical way to make significant improvements to how machines are used on site today and in the future.

Niklas Nillroth, head of sustainability and public affairs at Volvo CE, said: “Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our time, and one of the most important actions we can take is to help reduce our customers’ emissions. It is vital to get everyone involved and make it easy to contribute as part of one’s daily work. Every step on the path to net zero counts.”

“The services we use have been built on decades of innovation here at Volvo CE, but now for the first time we are bringing them together in one cohesive program that can be individually tailored to best fit our customers’ needs.”

CO2 Reduction in Four Steps

The CO2 Reduction Program is designed to be easily integrated into customer’s plans, while maintaining required levels of profitability and productivity, and is based on four simple steps: • Insights —Volvo CE starts by understanding where the customer currently is in terms of carbon emissions and establishing a baseline to compare against. Using telematics data from connected machines, Volvo CE determines the CO2 footprint for all machines on site — no matter the brand. Mapping this data then allows the customer to visualize the impact of carbon reduction changes over time. • Analyze — The experts at Volvo CE analyze the customer’s machine data and conduct a site study to understand how the material flow, fleet composition, and operator behavior affects the emissions on their site(s). Volvo CE then illustrates where improvements can be made and what actions need to be taken to reduce CO2 /ton. Using Volvo Site Simulation, the experts reveal to the customer the impact of these improvements to help motivate real change. • Improve — After identifying the specific actions required, Volvo CE helps the customer to implement them. This will vary from customer to customer, but Volvo CE is there to support with key services such as Eco Operator training and other efficiency services such as Efficient Load Out — or plan a smooth transition towards electric machines. • Sustain — At this stage the customer will already start seeing the rewards of their efforts, both economically and environmentally. However, the final step is for Volvo CE to support in sustaining these efforts, by continuously monitoring the CO2 level over time, to make sure that the improvements reduce emissions and customers do not slip back into old habits. Volvo CE also will look for new ways to reduce emissions even further in the future.

Leading the Way … Together

This customer program is one of many initiatives devised by Volvo CE towards the needed transformation within the construction industry. The company has set an industryleading target to reach net zero value chain greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 — with a 50 percent reduction in CO2 emissions across its own operations and a 30 percent reduction in CO2 emissions across product use as early as 2030.

In 2013, Volvo CE introduced the world’s first carbon neutral construction equipment production facility in Braås, Sweden — which recently built the world’s first vehicle made of fossil-free steel — and in addition currently offers the largest range of electric machines.

Volvo CE encourages customers to find out how they can elevate their efforts to reach net zero or take the first step on their sustainability journey today by contacting their local dealer or visiting the Volvo CO2 Reduction Program. 

Transportation Improvement... States Move Forward On 16,000 Projects in Fiscal Year 2021

States in the Midwest led the way as transportation departments moved forward on more than 16,000 highway and bridge improvement projects in fiscal year 2021, according to a new analysis of Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) data conducted by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA).

The association’s “Federal Highway Investment Benefits by State” dashboard, compiled by Chief Economist Alison Premo Black, shows that states leveraged $31.4 billion in federal funds with their own funds to advance nearly $57 billion in projects.

The top five states with the most projects are: • Missouri: 1,040 projects • Michigan: 903 projects • Ohio: 796 projects • Indiana: 731 projects • Tennessee: 663 projects

Nearly half of the projects — 43 percent — were for repair or reconstruction work. An additional 20 percent was used for adding capacity, such as a new lane or major widening, to an existing roadway. Six percent of funds were invested in new roads or bridges.

A map allows visitors to see how each state deployed federal funds and the top projects that received federal support.

The five largest projects nationally that include a mix of federal, state, local, and private funds, are: • Georgia — SR 400 North Springs Marta Station to McFarland Road Express Lane ($3.8 billion) • Arizona — I-17 Split ($899 million) • Texas — Construct new roadway lanes/reconstruct existing roadway on IH 35E ($715 million) • Nebraska — 20th St., Missouri River Omaha ($607 million) • Louisiana — LA 1: Leeville to Golden Meadow, Phase 2 ($524 million)

“One of the most attractive benefits of major public investments in transportation infrastructure is they foster immediate economic growth and create tangible capital assets that are long-lived,” Black said.

“We expect to see even more projects in the coming year as states work to obligate the record increase in FY 2022 federal funding available through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) that was approved by Congress,” Black added.

The dashboard aims to provide U.S. taxpayers, elected officials, news media and the public with greater transparency about how federal highway program funds are invested annually. It allows users to see how each state annually deployed federal funds and features the top projects dating back to 1950. Black populates the dashboard using the data states submit to FHWA’s Fiscal Management Information System (FMIS).

For more information, visit www.artba.org. 

A. Montano Co. Inc.

www.amontanoco.com 571 Route 212 Saugerties, NY 12477

845-247-0206

6803 Manlius Center Road East Syracuse, NY 13057

315-437-1471 800-872-2390 Tracey Road Equipment

www.traceyroad.com Adams Center, NY 315-788-0200 888-335-0200

Albany, NY 518-438-1100 866-740-8853

22035 Perry Highway Zelienople (Pittsburgh), PA 16063

724-452-7800 Highway Equipment Company

www.highway-equipment.com Dubois, PA

814-371-3600

1405 Timken Place SW Canton, OH 44706

330-915-8391

Construction Crews Work to Transform Structure Into 50-Ft. Deep Berth at Port

Excavators are being used to remove old concrete interlocking stone pavers and fill.

PORT from page 1

“The underside is below the water level and required skilled divers to install the rebar while forming and pouring beam to strengthen the structural concrete,” Veid said. “Fay experts knew that with divers underwater, this project would need to use vibratory equipment to lessen any percussion signals.”

Both topside and underwater concrete additions reinforced the berth enabling the structure to withstand the additional loading forces by the new NeoPanamax cranes when unloading two oversized cargo ships simultaneously.

Fay added support structures, which included a 1,650-ft. long combination wall, containing both king and sheet pile, enabling the team to be able to work quickly and increase the depth to 50 ft. That is an added 12 ft. to the existing draft. All these driven, dredged and reinforced construction methods are reinforcing the infrastructure at the Port of Baltimore to handle this increased load.

Veid explained that Fay is showing diverse skills to make this happen. The new sheeting wall extended below the surface of the water to a toe elevation of -85 to -90 with the top cutoff elevation of -40.

“To perform this installation, Fay designed and fabricated four driving templates to preset and hold each section of king pile and interlocking sheets,” Veid said. “Once the piles were preset, a Link-Belt model 248 crane, along with an ICE vibratory model 44 driver/extractor with extensions were

Crews are installing new fenders. used to begin installation. Next, the ICE model 110 vibratory hammer with extensions was used to drive to engineering specifications.” He noted that the most challenging aspect of the project was installing the piling through the difficult soil conditions with adjacent structural limitations. Other structural upgrades and improvements included the removal and replacement of 25 new fenders, five new mooring bollards, 24 new crane tie downs and eight new stow pin pockets. Mechanical upgrades replaced the old cable horn reels and electrical upgrades were made to the electrical vaults and transformers that power the Panamax cranes. The Port of Baltimore continues to grow year after year and “has uniquely positioned [Maryland] to handle critical links in our nation’s supply chain,” said Gov. Larry Hogan. Hogan, President Joe Biden and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg have all made visits to the Port of Baltimore while this construction has been under way.  CEG

NCCCO Announces First Veterans in VICTOR Program

The first recipients of the VICTOR program were announced recently by the NCCCO Foundation and Heavy Equipment Colleges of America (HEC).

The Veteran In Crane Training Outstanding Recognition (or V.I.C.T.O.R.) award is presented to the top-performing veteran in each HEC training class for NCCCO mobile crane operator certification. HEC runs training classes for veterans both at Fort Irwin Army Base in California and at Joint Base Lewis-McChord location in Washington State.

The four awardees who graduated top of their class are: David Carter and Gabriel Hope (Fort Irwin) and John Bleignier and William Hare (Joint Base LewisMcChord). Each receives a $100 gift card, a YETI tumbler and a Certificate of Achievement plaque.

While receipt of the VICTOR award surprised most awardees, all felt gratified to be so recognized.

“Receiving this award encouraged me to pursue my education and further my career in this industry,” said Carter, while Hope set a goal of getting a crane operating job “so that I can make a career out of it and become a proficient outstanding operator.”

All testified to the quality of instruction they received at HEC and stated their appreciation for the focus on safety and the attention to detail provided by the instructors.

“A central component of the NCCCO Foundation’s mission is to facilitate access by veterans to the construction industry,” said NCCCO Foundation CEO Graham Brent, “particularly in the crane and rigging sector. The V.I.C.T.O.R. program is a small but significant step in that direction.”

“HEC is proud to help veterans and civilians to find rewarding careers in the construction industry,” said HECA CEO Bob Albano, “and the V.I.C.T.O.R. program serves to reward excellence among our veteran students.”

About the V.I.C.T.O.R. Award

The VICTOR Award Program was unveiled at the NCCCO Foundation’s sixth annual industry forum on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, 2021. Eligible participants must be a veteran and have completed the HEC Mobile Crane Training Program. Awards are issued in accordance with the program completion timeline.

About HEC

The Heavy Equipment Colleges of America (HEC) is a private educational and training school specializing in entry level training on mobile earthmoving and lifting equipment at four locations around the country. Programs are designed to teach students the basic fundamentals of equipment operation and to gain experience of immediate value to employers.

For more information, visit www.ncccofoundation.org and www.heavyequipmentcollege.com. 

Kurt Patterson and Andrew Hubbel own a land management company that services the communities in the Columbia River Gorge, between Oregon and Washington states.

Red Tail Forestry Works specializes in a relatively new application that the owners have coined Forestry Grooming.

“Forestry grooming is a specialized industry where it isn’t traditional forestry or logging and it’s not landscaping,” said Hubbel. “We are the first ones to do this in this part of the northwest and the feedback from our customers and the Oregon Department of Forestry has been extremely positive,” Patterson added.

Forestry Grooming

Patterson and Hubbel explained that in traditional large-scale masticating projects in heavily forested or heavily timbered areas, the byproduct left is often very unsightly.

“It tends to be long, stringy and still a hard to access terrain,” said Hubbel.

“The product itself is not easy to move through. It is often done with modified feller bunchers or heavy excavators with external cooling units that go through and just blow the trees up, but it checks the box of helping with reducing the fuel load,” Patterson added.

According to them, forestry grooming is much different.

“The family that FAE has put together with their PT line, from the 175 up to the 475, puts an unmatched product on the ground,” said Hubbel. “It basically makes it an instant park.”

“The forestry grooming jobs we do are first and foremost, something that everyone wants to look at. The product we leave is one that you can instantly access, where recreationalists are able to walk, hike, bike, use motorized ATVs and horses. And the feedback we receive is amazing, we hear that people are no longer discouraged from walking through or afraid to get hurt if they step on it, and this is true for every area that we have treated with our PT-175,” he added.

In a nutshell, the difference between forestry grooming and the more traditional approaches to fuel reduction work in such heavily dense and wild areas is the quality of the final product, which in addition to being more effective at decreasing fire fuels, also leaves the terrain in a fully “groomed” condition that allows for recreational activities, enhancing the overall value and attractiveness of the land for local communities.

“One of the biggest positives that we’ve had, is that FAE comes with a reputation across the industry,” said Hubbel. “We’ve heard from other states and organizations, when they want a machine in the field, that they want the orange machine. They don’t know what it is, they just want the orange machine.”

“The other really huge and determining factor was the support. Chris McKinney at Pacific JCB and Mike Sampels, our FAE representative, spent a lot of time with us in the field. They were a guiding hand, working with us, helping us get set up and going. That was hugely beneficial and it made our ability to jump in and hit the ground running with the 175 much easier, compared to any other manufacturer we’ve worked with so far,” said Hubbel.

“The PT-175 speaks for itself, it’s a great machine, but when it comes with that type of support, that really changed the game for us, it was everything we could have hoped for.”

For Patterson “it was a hundred percent trust.”

“They came out and made sure the machine was exactly the one we needed for the applications we were applying it to.”

As the primary driver of the PT-175, one of Patterson’s favorite features is “the winch housing on the back, which does an amazing job of protecting it,” he stated.

“That poor devil takes a lot of the hits and I don’t know how anybody would ever buy a machine without one. It does a lot to protect the backend, the radiator and, to some degree, the roof. We even reinforced it because we are really depending on this machine to do a hundred percent of the heavy lifting in the woods.

“Where we work is borderline rainforest. We’re looking at old grow stands on the slopes of Mount Hood to include heavy maples and string oaks. These are substantial trees with a very mature and substantial undergrowth. In the Mount Hood Valley and Columbia River Gorge we are running into a lot of the traditional northwest vegetation like doug fir, grand fir, western cedar and lots of dense native white oak that is several hundred years old. When we’re up higher in elevation it is scrub oak and one of the worst ones, the super stringy vine maple.

“With the counter cutters and then the manner in which you stagger the cutters, on just two passes with the PT-175, you can make vine maple look like the rest of the types of trees that we can get into and make a nice product.” 

(L-R) are Chris McKinney, Pacific JCB; Andrew Hubble and Kurt Patterson, Red Tail Forestry Works; and Mike Sampels, FAE USA west coast PT territory manager.

“The product itself is not easy to move through. It is often done with modified feller bunchers or heavy excavators with external cooling units that go through and just blow the trees up, but it checks the box of helping with reducing the fuel load.”

Kurt Patterson

Red Tail Forestry Works

State Predicts New Stadium Construction to Create 10K Jobs

STADIUM from page 16 hired Populous, the Kansas City, Mo.-based architectural firm that specializes in designing stadiums and arenas, to begin rendering plans and designs, which are expected to be completed by this fall. Although the stadium will not feature a roof, the Bills plan to have 80 percent of its seating protected from the elements.

Labor Leaders Ecstatic Over Huge Project

“The men and the women who will be building this project will be the men and women of union labor here in western New York, and because of the size of this project we believe that Rochester’s Union Labor Building Trades will benefit from it,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz told WHEC-TV.

Rochester Building and Trades Council President Grant Malone could not be happier after hearing the news that unionized construction workers will do all the work.

He also explained why it is so important to go with union labor.

“You get a fair wage,” Malone said. “You have healthcare and you participate in a retirement program. You can raise your family. You can supply for your family. To me, it’s the only way to go, and the craftsmanship is definitely top-notch.”

The Bills’ stadium is slated to be a 1.3 million-sq.-ft. facility, guaranteeing lots of work for both unskilled and skilled laborers looking for a career.

“In the construction industry, this is where you want to be,” Malone said. “There’s no doubt about it. We’re reaching out to everybody we can because we see this work coming and it’s a big [boon] for New York State.”

The Rochester Building and Construction Trades Council is made up of 24 different trade unions and Malone said each one should have a stake in this project. He noted that there will be opportunities for people who work in concrete, masonry, and electrical installation, to name just a few.

The New York State Building and Construction Trades Council represents approximately 200,000 tradespeople across the state. 

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

JESCO is looking for candidates in a variety of different positions, including: • Sales • Service • Parts • Technicians • Rentals • Admin Support We have openings across all branch locations: South Plainfield, NJ … Lumberton, NJ … Beacon, NY … Deer Park, NY … Shrewsbury, MA … Baltimore, MD … Delmar, MD … Waldorf, MD … Middletown, DE Whether you are entry level or experienced, JESCO wants you to be part of our world class team. We have exciting career opportunities for dedicated professionals who want to learn and grow with us. Visit our career site at https://sites.hireology.com/jescoinc/jobs.html and apply today! H.O. Penn Machinery, the CATERPILLAR Dealer for NY Metro and Connecticut, is looking for talented and experienced people to join their team!

Service Manager Newington, CT

Road Mechanic Service Supervisor Bronx, NY

- Generate growth through Service Sales - Manage department operations - Forecast and budget - Maintain a safe and productive environment - Effectively manage the development and performance of staff

Qualifications:

- Minimum 5 years’ of union / labor management experience - Excellent computer, communication and organization skills - Experience with budget and forecasting - Industry knowledge (Construction Equipment) preferred

Base salary plus bonus potential, company vehicle, and competitive benefit package

Visit www.hopenn.com/careers to apply or call 1.855.CAT4JOB for more information

- Assure repairs are completed and jobs are billed in a timely fashion - Maximize technician utilization by effectively scheduling, planning, & assigning work - Conduct weekly safety meetings & ensure monthly safety audits are complete - Assist in hiring mechanics & manage performance review process - Develop people through training, coaching, etc. - Ensure fleet is maintained & operating safely

Qualifications:

- Minimum 2 years’ management experience in directing labor required - Experience with troubleshooting and repair of construction equipment and strong mechanical aptitude strongly preferred - Strong computer skills and comfortable with technology and utilizing different systems - Excellent communication and organization skills

Base salary plus bonus potential and competitive benefit package

Visit www.hopenn.com/careers to apply or call 1.855.CAT4JOB for more information