Operating Graders Is A Lifelong Learning Experience

Graders – they’re weird looking beasts yet they perform a role that is vital to the success of any road building program. If you were to closely examine a grader its design would probably confound you. They are long and narrow and at times their front wheel bend at such an angle you would swear they were about to snap off. The design of a grader, like most heavy equipment, is one built from need.

Before graders, roads were built by hand with hundreds of laborers working long hours in the hot blazing sun to lay roads that were not quite level, but for their time, good enough. If you wanted a smoother or flatter finish to the road, you brought in heavy rollers like the old fashioned steam rollers. Now, although rollers are still used, they perform a different role.

The advent of graders has meant that work gangs are no longer needed in such high numbers. In fact, these days most workers on road crews are qualified in some field – we certainly don’t need the scores of laborers we once did. The role of a grader is fairly straightforward although the job itself is certainly not ‘straightforward’. The grader ‘grades’ the surface. In other words it carves and shapes the road much like a knife cutting through butter. The very slight slope that all roads have owes itself to the precise skills of a grader operator – skills that can be developed in as short as three weeks yet take a lifetime to really master.

You can start that journey to becoming a master grader operator by completing a three week heavy equipment training program that provides you with the skills to operate equipment like graders. If you’re ready for the journey, we are ready to help you through those first few weeks – you just need to take those first few steps.