LEOA Graduates First Student Logger Class
Mississippi’s Hinds Community College graduated its first batch of students from the new Logging Equipment Operator Academy (LEOA) in December 2021. Four students completed the 16-week workforce certificate course and received a Professional Logger Manager (PLM) qualification, OSHA-10 safety training, CPR/First Aid and TeamSafe Trucking Module 1-2.
LEOA is located at Hinds’ Raymond, Miss. campus and features a John Deere rubber-tire simulator, two wheeled feller-bunchers, two track feller-bunchers and several desktop models with joysticks for teaching students with little to no experience how to operate in-woods machinery.
The four-month course includes classroom instruction on forestry concepts, business management specific to logging, PLM qualifications, tree identification, equipment maintenance and DOT regulations, as well as several hours of seat time on actual feller-bunchers and knuckleboom loaders.
Mississippi Loggers Assn. (MLA) and Mississippi Forestry Commission partnered with Hinds Community College, Justin McDermott at John Deere, and Scott Swanson, Stribling Equipment, to bring the program to life.
Of the four students who recently graduated, three have already taken jobs within the industry.
David Livingston, MLA Director, says they look to expand the LEOA program to existing loggers interested in training employees to operate other pieces of heavy equipment.
Latest News
PotlatchDeltic Redoing Waldo
PotlatchDeltic Corp. is investing $131 million to expand and modernize its sawmill located in Waldo, Ark. The project will increase the mill’s annual production capacity from 190MMBF of southern yellow pine dimension lumber to 275MMBF. The company…
Weyerhaeuser Led Company Through Key Years
George H. Weyerhaeuser Sr., who served as president and CEO of Weyerhaeuser Co. from 1966 to 1991 during an exciting period of wood products development while encountering new timber supply challenges brought on by an aggressive environmental…
Have A Question?
Send Us A Message