The 2019 ACPA Education Conference proved to be another big success, as the concrete pumping industry gathered to learn, network and see the newest in equipment and technology. With the recurring theme of “Pumping Knowledge into Your Business,” this year’s conference was held Oct. 6-7 at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Kissimmee, Florida.
According to various sources, Reptile strategy has taken the plaintiffs’ bar by storm. This is at least in part because Reptile theory asserts that you can prevail at trial by speaking to—and scaring—the primitive part of jurors’ brains, commonly understood as the part of the brain they share with reptiles.
On March 21, 2019, the ACPA’s two-year exemption from the federal Hours of Service (HOS) requirement that commercial drivers take a 30-minute off-duty break after eight hours of work expired. ACPA applied for a five-year renewal of its exemption from the 30-minute break requirement in September 2018. However, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) incorrectly assumed that concrete pumpers did not need the 30-minute break exception after FMCSA granted ACPA a two-hour extension to the HOS short- haul exemption* in November 2018.
Your association has been working towards improving and elevating the ACPA Operator Certification Program for over two years now. In July of 2017, we held a Safety Summit in which ACPA members gathered to discuss a vision for the future of ACPA safety training and certification. Since this time, there have been many meetings and discussions to get our wide-ranging membership to agree on the direction we should take with the program. Some favor a live training format, others prefer online and still others envision a third-party-accredited safety/training and certification program. Although the general consensus did finally concede that our industry is not quite ready for such stringent requirements as third-party testing and practical assessments, the mandate to “step up our game” is clear.
