Leavitt Machinery Acquires Edmonton Training Company Crane Safety Ltd.
Leavitt Machinery has acquired Edmonton, Alberta, Canada-based training company Crane Safety Limited. For more than 30 years, Crane Safety Ltd. has provided quality training programs for the mining, petrochemical, forestry, manufacturing and railroad sectors in Canada, the United States and South America. In addition to classroom learning and work-site training, Crane Safety Ltd. designs and produces instruction manuals for mobile, conventional and overhead crane operation, further establishing their position as a respected operator training company.
Since 1985 founder and president Bruce Larsen has run a fully insured training facility where all instructors are certified journeyman status crane operators with a minimum of 10 years of experience, earning Crane Safety Ltd. a well-respected reputation nationally and internationally. Leavitt Machinery has been steadily growing its training division for more than 15 years and trains more than 30,000 operators per year in various disciplines. After learning that Larsen was open to new opportunities, Leavitt Machinery approached Crane Safety Ltd. about a possible acquisition.
“We were very pleasantly surprised and excited at Crane Safety Ltd. when Leavitt Machinery approached us to partner with them,” said Larsen. “I had watched their organization from a distance and was amazed at how professional they were and how far they had progressed in the operator training field in such a short period of time.”
Leavitt Machinery senior vice president John Mutis said the acquisition of Crane Safety Ltd. is an “asset to our continued investment in safety training and certification. We want to distinguish ourselves from other training facilities and one of the ways we are accomplishing this is by cultivating an experienced team of trainers.”
The Sherwood Park Crane Safety Ltd. training facility will be shut down this month and operations will be relocated to Leavitt Machinery’s training school in Edmonton. Leavitt Machinery said is is retaining the original staff of Crane Safety Ltd. and is welcoming them into their team of trainers. Larson is taking the position of manager of crain training at Leavitt.
Leavitt Machinery was founded in 2001 and is well known in western Canada and the western United States for its dedication to safety and as a leader in the material handling industry.
With COR certification in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, Leavitt Machinery runs a trusted operator training department, and has implemented extensive health and safety standards internally. With more than 26 locations, two training branches and sister company Leavitt Cranes, Leavitt Machinery offers material handling equipment, online and classroom training and crane solutions.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.