As a winner of the 2009 Crane Hot Line Top Trainer award in the Corporate Category, Mike Patten, a trainer with the Training and Safety department at Southwest Industrial Rigging (SWIR), Phoenix, Ariz., was awarded a $1,250 scholarship to use for educational purposes. He has in turn donated his award money to Richard Kempf, a crane operator for East Valley Crane Service in Mesa, Ariz. Although Kempf has operated cranes—primarily sign trucks and boom trucks—for more than 10 years, he had not yet become a certified crane operator. He is the general manager and operator at East Valley Crane, a two-person operation owned by Scott Davis.
Scholarship Helps Veteran Crane Operator Get Certified
