The Road to Success is Paved with Safety
John Klabacka, President, Associated Training Services Corp. & ATS Specialized, LLC

Ask ten ordinary people what the key to a successful business is and you may get ten different answers. Ask ten highly successful business people and you will probably hear the word safety more than once. As a person involved in the construction related training industry, our business is safety. Over the past thirty years of being a part of these industries, I have learned that there are two types of business mindsets, one that prioritizes safety over everything else, and one that doesn’t. It’s been more than once that I’ve heard people say, “Well, you have to make a profit, right?”, when talking about safety. My philosophy has always been the same - safety is a cost of doing business, no different than paying the electric bill, and if you can’t afford that cost, then you shouldn’t be in the business.

There are no gray areas when it comes to safety. Another common phrase regularly heard in the construction/lifting industries when talking about safety is, “That’s a gray area”. For us, when it comes to safety, we see everything in black and white. If there is risk of injury or death, that is clearly black and white. Personally, I don’t want to tell someone’s family the reason for a worker’s injury or death was the result of a gray area. Error on the side of caution and everyone goes home at night.

Associated Training Services (ATS) has been training beginner level crane and equipment operators for the last thirty years and we here at ATS take great pride in knowing our graduates have all learned the right way to do thing from the “get go”. As many of our affiliated employers have told us over the years, it’s hard to break bad habits or habits that have been instilled through tribal (“that’s the way I was taught by my peers) learning. When you start with a clean slate and teach a person why and how things are done safely, that will stick with them for a life time.

ATS has been affiliated with the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators (NCCCO) for the last fifteen years and ATS has helped thousands of individuals and employees gain NCCCO certification through its extensive list of training products and services. ATS strongly believes that NCCCO and its variety of crane/hoisting related certifications has vastly improved the safety record for organizations and individuals in these industries. ATS is proud to be affiliated with such an outstanding organization who is making such a positive impact on these industries.