Civil engineering technicians reviewing design layouts. Photo credit myfuture.com

Along with being distributors of trench shoring products such as trench shields and slide rail shoring systems, we like to provide useful information for students. Civil engineering is a common profession in our field, and we realized that there weren’t a tremendous amount of practical resources where students could learn more about what a career in this field would look like. With that in mind, we asked some successful professionals and educators their thoughts on career paths, advice on classes, starting positions and much more.

Question 1:

If a student were looking to get into civil engineering, what courses should they take and what skills would will be most valuable in the industry and most important in helping them succeed?

They will need to take math and physics courses in high school and some chemistry. Computer skills, communication skills business and leadership skills is also a plus

Husam Najm, Ph.D., S.E.

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We pride ourselves on keeping construction workers safe with our products. Here’s a few interesting articles that caught our eye that are trench shoring related. Hope you enjoy!

Firefighters Train for Trench Rescue

Rudimentary Trench Support Failed to Protect

Worker Crushed in trench propped with plywood

At Pro-Tec Equipment, we value the work civil engineers have on our society. That’s why we’ve put together a fun engineering quiz that will test your knowledge about common engineering principles, current events, and other interesting engineering related information.

We scheduled OSHA competent person training in Illinois for a large group of contractors and also that same week, training for Illinois American Water.  Unfortunately, during that week two workers were killed in trench accidents.  One died in a trench cave-in and the other was struck in the head with an excavator bucket and was killed instantly.

As we all know contractors now each other very well and everyone was aware of what had happened.  Needless to say we had their attention and it was a very somber but attentive group for training that week.

A few years ago a large municipality had workers in a trench without protection and an Aluminum Trench Shield on site.  OSHA caught them and since they had trench shoring but didn’t use it, they got a willful violation and cost them over $150,000 in fines.  The unnamed Municipality decided to buy mod  series shoring for each of their crews.  Our dealer decided to make a bad situation a little better for both and offered a package deal to the municipality.  He offered the shoring, a small trailer and a job box that they could bolt to the trailer.  They could keep their pins, keepers, slings etc. together and locked when not in use.  The unnamed municipality loved the idea and bought several.  That is thinking outside the “box”.

Imagine houses, trees, sidewalks, fractured clay, sticky clay, and glacial till. Add to that the challenge of minimizing the disturbance to the local area while boring a 48” pipe beneath the road. These and many other challenges are what Kandey Company, Inc. out of West Seneca New York is facing while completing the first of the multi-phase Parker-Fries Project.

The Parker-Fries Project is a major construction project in Tonawanda, New York. Theproject started in the summer of 2010 and will continue over the next 18 to 24 months.  It will replace more than 11,000 feet of aging and deteriorating sanitary sewer system line. The old sewer line has been a source of contention between the Town of Tonawanda and the state Department of Environmental Conservation, due in part, to the unfortunate instances in which the overflow has entered the storm water system, eventually ending up in nearby waterways. Read the rest of this entry »

While I trained 3 new sales people today, I told them a story about when I was looking for a new dealer in theCincinnatiarea and it went something like this:

I was looking for a new dealer in the Cincinnati area several years ago.  Not knowing anyone in the area I called on several of the larger underground construction contractors in the area.  One contractor, who will remain nameless, when asked who he used for his trench shoring needs replied “well this is really rocky ground around here and we don’t really need trench shoring.”  I thought about it for a minute and asked if he was concerned about OSHA catching them doing something illegal.  His reply was that OSHA didn’t have much of a presence in that particular region of the country.  I then said “so you never have any cave-ins in this area”?  He replied with…”Oh no, we have several deaths a year due to cave-ins”.  I just looked at him and he turned red and said “well, maybe we do need to start using trench boxes”.

Just because a tragedy has never happened to you or your company doesn’t mean that it can’t or won’t.

First let’s cover what Rumble Grids are.  They are a manufactured item that is designed is such away to do two things, first, when the Rumble Grids are driven over, they create enough vibration to dislodge dirt and debris from the under-bodies of the vehicles that drive over them, and second, they spread the treads of the tires enough to dislodge any rocks, pebbles or dirt.

So, why do you want to use Rumble Grids?  There are a few reasons, but the first is probably the most compelling, they will save you money.  That’s right, they will save you money.  Rumble Grids can be used in place of crushed stone, they also remove the need for a street cleaner, or broom attachment that cleans up the track-out left by trucks as they leave the job-site. Read the rest of this entry »

Through the winter months things in the underground industry start to slow down.  In fact, some cases they downright stop.  This is a time to reflect on a strong year in the past and start to wonder about the upcoming year. 

I’d like to sit here and tell everyone how great it’s going to be and make everyone feel warm and fuzzy; but that just doesn’t settle with me.  See, with the way the economy is working, there’s no telling what is to come.  But, as I try to stay positive I can tell you that this upcoming year should be better than the past. 

With Michigan’s economy headed on an upward slope and the talk of a new bridge to Canada that is supposed to kick start the jobs in Michigan; I’m anticipating a prosperous year.  I believe it’s important to stay positive and keep on knocking on doors, making cold calls and keeping a relative relationship with your customers.  Finding new customers can be tough, but they are out there.  Read the rest of this entry »

What do you call a job that requires four different pipe jacking pits to install a new 72” sanitary sewer pipe?  Typically, this would be a standard job.  But what if that job required excavations that ranged from 20’ deep to 32’ deep, had an active 21” sanitary sewer line running through one of the pits, had a pond directly next to another of the pits, had a creek less than 12’ away, had a mix of sticky clay soil and running sand, had an apartment building nearby, and had a highly traveled road 15’ away? 

If you are Lowe Construction, with the help of Pro-Tec Equipments Slide Rail Shoring System, you would call it a successful job!   

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