british columbia faller training advice and discussion

[Gologit]

I guess if they can teach you the basics so you at least have some knowledge and theory of it in practice that's a good thing. My question is, is it enough?


Absolutely not! In my opinion, when the guys get through the course then they are ready to start breaking in. And that's where the right attitude comes in. If you come out of there with the impression that now you're a "faller", you'll be sadly mistaken. The guys that succeed know their place. I don't mean that to sound arrogant, but the newbies have to have the respect both for the job and the men already doing it successfully. You don't have to be a wallflower, but eyes and ears wide open is a good start!

Well said.

 

[Gologit]

.... It's a huge responsibility to turn someone loose in the woods with just enough information and training to get him hurt or killed.


... I don't want to be that guy that sends someone out with too little information and training. This is a business that is OJT but at the same time you have to have someone who is knowledgable to help you survive.

Exactly. I take very few trainees anymore for just that reason. The last guy I taught to fall was my nephew. He'd been in the woods all his life, had a good attitude, and he did alright but it's still a worrisome process. He worked with me for two seasons before I turned him loose and I still stop and wonder if there wasn't something else I should have mentioned or shown or cautioned him about. He's doing fine...but I still think about it.

New guys screw up...that's a given. You allow for that because it's part of the process. Always has been, always will be. You show them the best you can, show them what they did wrong and how to fix it, show them how to keep a mistake from becoming a disaster, show them how to keep it from happening again...and hope it sinks in.

 

[northwest coast]

do you think the big price tag for the course is partly meant to shy people away so that it keeps joe shmo from thinking falling is the answer to his jobless problems ?

i mean, you'd have to really want to be a committed faller to pay ten grand to do it right ? if thats the case then i disagree with it, because it might keep the right but also the wrong people out of the industry.

an alternative ? i don't know, maybe a hiring pool where demonstrated skills and written exams allow only people who are worth training into a group whereby the company can choose from and take them on. ten thousand dollar course or not, the company will have to invest a lot into a new recruit.

also, most people with previous falling experience got it before that course existed. paradoxical, no ?

it encourages me to get rogue training and challenge the exam.

thanks everyone for letting me vent, and helping me see both sides of the issue. i'm keeping an open mind about it.

 

[coastalfaller]

do you think the big price tag for the course is partly meant to shy people away so that it keeps joe shmo from thinking falling is the answer to his jobless problems ?

i mean, you'd have to really want to be a committed faller to pay ten grand to do it right ? if thats the case then i disagree with it, because it might keep the right but also the wrong people out of the industry.

an alternative ? i don't know, maybe a hiring pool where demonstrated skills and written exams allow only people who are worth training into a group whereby the company can choose from and take them on. ten thousand dollar course or not, the company will have to invest a lot into a new recruit.

also, most people with previous falling experience got it before that course existed. paradoxical, no ?

it encourages me to get rogue training and challenge the exam.

thanks everyone for letting me vent, and helping me see both sides of the issue. i'm keeping an open mind about it.

I know the industry recognizes there is going to be a shortage very soon and there is a push afoot to make a change to the current system of training fallers.

Many of the people who take the training right now, either have the money or are sponsored to take it, either through government programs or First Nations. Currently, I don't believe many end up in the industry afterward.

 

[madhatte]

Currently, I don't believe many end up in the industry afterward.

Sounds to me like ten grand a head is just a revenue stream. For training to mean anything, it needs to be first and foremost available.

The argument that "it costs at least that to break in a new guy" is a point sort-of-well-taken; sure there are expenses in training, but if a business makes that investment in an employee, they are going to do so with the understanding that the employee will not only stick around long enough to pay for that expense, but that the business will, in the end, make a profit.

For a government agency to take on that process as an expense to the employee, and to expect the business to accept their "blessing" of said employee as gospel, undermines the ages-old tradition of apprenticeship, by which knowledge is passed from one generation to the next. In this system, the government behaves as though they are a timeless entity and that generations don't matter. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

A better way to approach standardization in training is to take a page from the Wildfire world; there are standardized training modules, sure, but someone in the field with the proper experience has to bottom-line a qualification. In a commercial environment, that would be the equivalent of a crew boss being responsible for keeping track of training and certification for crew members. If I'm not mistaken, that's pretty much how it's already done elsewhere.

Wasn't it Jefferson who said "The Government governs best which governs least"?

 

[hammerlogging]

If experience can really get you out of the class, sounds to me like I can get some BC hopeful fallers to come work for me for a year or two at a time, heck they don't even have to pay me 10 grand, then I'll ship them back ready to go!!!!

On another note, I believe its been suggested before that this has something to do with the inherent dangers of the trade coupled with the nationalized health care-- prevention is cheaper. Maybe?

 

[madhatte]

prevention is cheaper

I bet it is, on paper. I still believe in apprenticeship.

 

[RandyMac]

I bet it is, on paper. I still believe in apprenticeship.

I do also, even after having been an indentured servant.

 

[northwest coast]

your right on the money with that one hammerlogging. i would have to work for a few months to save up enough dough for that course, why wouldn't i try to get experience instead, and not only save money, but make it gaining the experience.

funny though, just what they are trying to prevent is what i am forced to do.

canadian health care ? yeah thats a valid point, i've even heard it argued on the radio that paying for people to quit smoking will be cheaper for tax payers in the long run. thats canadian through and through. i've always thought that insurance companies rule the world, this is just one more bit of evidence.

i think the bc forest safety council lost funding and is trying to maintain their inflated salaries.

 

[gavin]

You'll get a different opinion from everybody about the certification program. Everybody thinks it's over priced, but to be fair the instructors aren't going to do it for nothing. Some guys like certain aspects of the certification. From talking to the older guys I work with, in the past when things got busy lots of companies would lower their standards (or throw them out completely) and hire as many "crummy stuffers" as they could just to get wood on the ground. I've heard so many stories from the past about guys bull####ting their way into a job and getting sent home after a day or two. That's not cheap for companies either. I know some guys would like it to be more like a recognized trade too.

I broke in recently. I was able to challenge the course from my experience as a forest fire fighter previously. I was saving up frantically to do the course because you need a decent amount of experience to be able to challenge it. When I was applying for work (it took a long time get on with a company do to the markets and shortage of work) I told every company I applied with the truth: that I was confident with basic falling skills, but I still had to get broken in. Everybody told me it cost them $50,000-60,000 to break a guy in. I made an agreement with the guys that broke me in that I would stick around and be loyal to them for the opportunity they gave me. One thing is that I definitely had my eyes blown wide open when I started my first shift. The size of the trees doesn't really mean much, it was the steep, broken ground with rock bluffs and salal over my head and ridiculous amounts of rotten cedar/hemlock hangups involving 10 or 15 trees that really shocked me. I was in camp with a guy who had been falling for something crazy like 40 years or something like that and he said if someone told him one day he'd be working in his type of ground he would have told them they were crazy. Hahaha.

 

[Big_Wood]

Think of it this way guys. They put a QST out in the woods with 2 guys to train. These QST's don't just train for free. Now let's think of what the BC fallers make a month at full rate. Over $10,000 on a good month. So let's say the course is a month and also that these QST's deserve to be paid more then a production faller. So between 2 guys they're bringing in $20,000 and those QST's gotta be making around $16,000 of that. That's $4000 going into the forest safety council desk jobs lets call them. I'm currently working on going through with this and I tell you, the forest safety council don't even have a clue. First they're telling me this date, then this date, then all of the sudden a course gets canceled a week in because WCB showed up on site and busted a QST with to many guys at the stump and now they cancelled another course because of high fire risks.The cost of the course at $10,000 a head made sense to me but the course is now $17,000. I know a few QST's and they are outraged because even though the cost of the course went up they ain't getting paid anymore. So my opinion on the whole thing is that the cost to get into forestry was fair to start but it has since turned into a money grab. Non profit my ass. I know Bill Boardman who is one of the highest regarded QST's in BC and he is absolutely sick of seeing who is going through that course. I was just sitting down have a coffee and a ******** with him last week about this very matter. Just cause a guy has the money to pay for the course does not mean it's a job for him. The EI thing drives me nuts. You got hard working individuals who have never been on EI but it seems the lazy sack of ***** going on EI every year get the privilege of funding for this course. I know so many flakes who go on EI every winter and say they can't find work. Such a bunch of BS. These people just have to suck it up and do something they don't want to do. As bill told me, if a guy is going into falling for the money he is way more likely to get seriously hurt or killed doing his job then someone going cause they truelly want to do it as a career. A faller is 10x more likely to get killed doing his job then a police officer in a city with the highest crime rate in the world. A faller is also 15x more likely to have a crippling life changing injury then a pro NFL football player. The guys who got money on the mind should just stay away and go do something else for a living.

 

[cupar]

I've got experience felling in the most difficult of terrain around very dangerous hazards. However I don't have lots experience running 80cc+ saws with 32"+ bars felling trees 100'+ tall. I'm lucky to cut 75' trees and unfortunately I've been able to cut alot of 40"+ trees lately but they're inner city so I've had to cut their tops off first leaving on 30' or shorter stems. I really would like to do the BC faller course as it is valued here in Alberta even if it isn't a requirement for anything. I just can't justify $10k. I can cut a 160' spruce in the rocky mountains beside a high voltage powerline with a 75cc saw and 3 wedges but I can't cross that line on a map into BC. There's alot I need to learn about felling tree's to have them easy to recover and not damage the wood. Until they change the course to make it possible for me to go, it just won't happen. I'd love to be a professional faller but I don't know if I'd be any good having my bad habits for doing powerline work.

 

[Big_Wood]

Cupar, the requirements for challenging the course these days is a minimum 2 years falling experience ending within 3 months of the falling course challenge. Other then that challenging the course is very rare these days as no one has legit 2 year term falling tree's. A lot of guys from BC go do their enform ticket in Alberta cause it is so much cheaper then come over after 2 years to challenge the BC course. Way cheaper but a way longer path for certification the fall here in BC. You sound like you meet the requirements to challenge the course. If your serious about it give the forest safety council a call.

 

[cupar]

I had my chainsaw faller competency level 3. Supplied training from my previous employer and they kept my Transportation of dangerous goods and my faller cert when I left and a few other cert's that they paid the training for, however those 2 I've never gotten back and they can't seem to find me in their system. However I believe the people on the phone find it alot easier to brush me off then actually look.