US Forest Service Apprentice Sawyer
I took a short training session (1 night of classroom, 2 days in the woods making noise & chips) put on by the USFS. That session was to get a group of volunteers trained up enough to borrow & use their equipment for recreational trail clean-up/maintenance. A lot of it was common sense mixed with a repetition of lessons learned over the years: PPE, bar control, situational awareness etc... but some -like using felling wedges- was new & valuable info. I'd consider it 'Felling/Bucking 101' - or more like Limbing & Bucking 101 after watching the pro fell the trees for us.
If the opportunity to continue the training towards higher levels of certification comes up, and if my schedule allowed it, I'd attend more in a heartbeat. I'm pretty sure the 'paid' USFS employees get first dibs on the doomed or dead trees... and 99% of that work would be done during their regular M-F working hours, so it may take a while to get the required number of supervised fells to progress. On the other hand, I could probably get "community service leave" (paid time off) to attend if I was aware of the time/date.
How do the OPE mfrs do their factory service tech training? Is it by the prospective techs attending a session away at the company HQ, or do they have some other method (online/correspondence courses, regional seminars?) I'd like to know more about fixing on my equipment... dunno if I could take a week or two off from my day job to do it, but???
Monkeyhanger, were you a Cavalry Scout or a Combat Engineer? I was a 19D3P Scout and we got some of that training in obstacle creation or breaching. Nothing says "We don't love you anymore" like blowing trees down across the road to box in a convoy.
Don