Crane Certification Prep for Fordyce and Dallas County Mill Crews

A plywood mill town

The Fordyce plywood plant started up in 1964 and, by a 1996 industry history, was turning out about 300 million square feet a year on a 3/8-inch basis. Production numbers have surely changed since then, but the mill is still the county's anchor. Plywood plants run lathes, dryers, presses and boilers, all of which need cranes and riggers during outages and upgrades. Contractors who work these shutdowns often travel a circuit of mills across the region, so a credential earned here goes with you.

Logging and the woods economy

A University of Arkansas at Monticello forestry profile counted 14 logging firms in the county and estimated forest industries at about $64 million of local GDP, with nearly all forest land privately owned. Log loaders, knuckle-boom trucks and equipment moves between tracts are everyday work. Operators who move from loaders into crane work, or who handle articulating cranes on delivery trucks, often need certification once their machines are used for hoisting in construction.

Rails, Highway 167 and getting loads in

Timber also built the county's transportation. The Fordyce and Princeton Railroad was incorporated in 1890 to haul logs to the mill and supplies back to the camps. Georgia-Pacific owned it from 1963 until March 2004, when it sold the line to Genesee and Wyoming; a Union Pacific short-line profile describes only the first couple of miles south of Fordyce as active. Georgia-Pacific itself has been owned by Koch Industries since 2005.

On the highway side, a $36 million project widened five miles of Highway 167 through Ivan, and a 2016 report said crews finished 47 working days early. Better roads matter to crane work because the big machines and their counterweight trucks have to reach the mill, and rail spurs, loading docks and log yards are often where the tightest setups happen. Expect to share space with moving trucks and rail cars, and to plan swing paths and exclusion zones around them.

Prep that fits

• Mobile crane operator for mill outage work
• Articulating crane operator for knuckle-boom trucks
• Rigger level 1 for millwrights and maintenance crews

Ground, weather and getting to a test

Dallas County is gently rolling pine land with sandy and clay soils that soften quickly in wet weather. Summer heat is intense, and spring storms bring wind that can cut a lift day short. Highways 79 and 167 meet at Fordyce, which makes it a practical stop for mill contractors moving between south Arkansas towns.

Arkansas has no state crane license. Federal OSHA covers private employers here, and its construction crane rules set out operator certification and employer evaluation. You can take written exams by Online Proctored Testing, at a test center or at an event; the practical is booked through the certifying body at an accredited site. Little Rock is roughly 75 miles north. More in our requirements guide.