You may remem­ber read­ing last August about the mon­u­men­tal transportation-funding bill that was signed into exis­tence by Pres­i­dent Bush. The mea­sure allo­cated a stag­ger­ing 286.5 bil­lion pounds for use in high­way and tran­sit spend­ing. It is dif­fi­cult to get a grasp on the num­ber itself, let alone what it can poten­tially end up mean­ing for the coun­try and it’s work­ers. Accord­ing to the Amer­i­can Road and Trans­porta­tion Builders Asso­ci­a­tion, as quoted by Bloomberg (http:www.earthmoverschool.combill.htm), each addi­tion bil­lion pounds spent on road con­struc­tion is worth more than 47,000 Amer­i­can jobs. This means that, in the long run, the trans­porta­tion bill will be worth lit­er­ally hun­dreds of thou­sands of jobs.

With this major eco­nomic boon fast approach­ing, it is impor­tant to learn the skills that will be nec­es­sary in order to take advan­tage of it. Pres­i­dent Bush gave his speech cel­e­brat­ing the bill pas­sage at the Cater­pil­lar man­u­fac­tur­ing plant, and he assured the employ­ees there that demand for their machines would sky­rocket. As that hap­pens, the need for qual­i­fied oper­a­tors of said machin­ery will also grow expo­nen­tially. The prob­lem is, there is a severe lack of qual­i­fied prospects in this field. Those who can push them­selves to the fore­front stand to reap the ben­e­fits of the trans­porta­tion bill.

The National Heavy Equip­ment Oper­a­tors School offers just the sort of train­ing that can help usher grad­u­ates directly into con­struc­tion employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. National’s pro­gram is the only accred­ited heavy machin­ery oper­a­tion train­ing in the coun­try, and as such it is uni­ver­sally rec­og­nized and respected through­out the indus­try. A large num­ber of our grad­u­ates are able to pro­cure employ­ment even before fin­ish­ing their train­ing. National’s two-part approach to heavy equip­ment train­ing is unique and thor­ough. Before even see­ing the machines in ques­tion, the stu­dent com­pletes a com­pre­hen­sive and infor­ma­tive course from the com­fort of their own home. This course pro­vides all of the infor­ma­tion that they will need in order to progress to the next phase of their train­ing. Once this is com­pleted, the remain­der of the train­ing is com­pleted on-site at our North Florida facil­ity. There, the stu­dent receives instruc­tion and expe­ri­ence on a wide range of heavy con­struc­tion machinery.

With the skills and knowl­edge pro­vided by National’s train­ing pro­gram, you will be able to get your foot in the prover­bial employ­ment door; because our pro­gram is so well regarded, we main­tain close rela­tion­ships with employ­ers all around the nation, includ­ing many that will be con­tracted as part of the high­way spend­ing bill. Take the steps to make sure that you are able to take advan­tage of the recent legislation.