Eighty hours to go from never having touched a machine to running a skid steer and a mini excavator on a real site — half online at your own pace, half hands-on with real equipment in Rogers, Arkansas.
Skid steers, mini excavators, site prep and the crew skills that go with them — the short version of this track, in under a minute and a half.
This is a 50/50 program: 40 hours online, self-paced, and 40 hours in person, hands-on. The online half can be done before, after, or during your in-person week — there's no required order. Start the online coursework the day you're approved.
The online half isn't locked to "week one." Some students finish it before their in-person week even starts. Others do it after, or work through it in parallel. Approved applicants get portal access immediately — use it whenever fits your schedule, as long as it's done by the end of the program.
The in-person week is all hands-on. Five days, 8 AM–5 PM, running skid steers and mini excavators on real ground. Meet in Rogers each morning — we provide transportation to and from the training site, so you don't need to find it yourself.
Once you finish the safety lessons (Lesson 1), the student portal shows you the open Fall Quarter weeks and you pick the one that fits your schedule. Weeks run Monday – Friday, 8 AM – 5 PM, at Centro Cristiano de Rogers, with transportation to the training site provided — the hands-on curriculum is identical whichever week you choose.
The other 40 hours — safety fundamentals, hand and power tools, reading site plans, and job readiness — are covered in the self-paced online modules, on your own schedule.
Controls, stability and load charts, attachment changes, loading a truck, grading a pad, and working safely around people on the ground.
Trenching to grade, slope work, backfill, precision digging around utilities, and moving the machine on and off a trailer.
Soil classification, protective systems, competent-person duties, utility locates, and the rules that decide when a trench is a coffin.
Site plans, grade stakes, staging and traffic flow, and where your machine belongs in the sequence of the job.
Each module unlocks when you pass the one before it. Every module ends with a project you build and submit and a quiz you have to clear — no skipping ahead, no finishing without doing the work.
OSHA construction standards (29 CFR 1926), the Fatal Four, PPE, excavation and trenching safety, protective systems, 811 utility locates, jobsite roles and organization.
Anatomy, hydraulics and control patterns, pre-operation inspection, trenching to depth and grade, spoil and backfill, slopes and confined spaces, digging near utilities, trailering. Earns the Academy Mini-Excavator Certificate.
Controls and counter-rotation, rated operating capacity, quick-attach systems, buckets and forks, material handling, back-dragging and grading, trailer transport. Earns the Academy Skid Steer Certificate.
Measuring and layout to a quarter inch, hand and power tool safety, soils and aggregates, compaction, concrete basics, drainage materials and fasteners.
Site plans, grading plans and utility drawings; grade stakes and field markings; spotter signals, radio protocols, and reporting like a professional.
A construction-focused resume, mock interviews, industry expectations, union and apprenticeship pathways, written final and individual equipment evaluations.
Your 40 online hours run inside a fictional contractor called Ozark Compact & Site Co. Your host is Tony Ramirez. Your mentor is Foreman Dana Cole, twenty-two years in. Marcus is the guy on the crew a few weeks ahead of you. Every assignment is a job Dana hands you, not a worksheet.
You start as a Greenhorn and work up to Site Boss. Every lesson earns XP, every module earns a badge, and no video runs longer than fourteen minutes because nobody learns anything from a fifty-minute lecture.
Every single lesson ends with something you actually do — an inspection you write up, a load you calculate, a plan you mark up and submit. Then your other 40 hours are the real thing: a live instructor, real equipment, and real ground, in Rogers during the Fall Quarter week you pick.
This isn't a video of someone else running the machine. Every student gets seat time on both a skid steer and a mini excavator, walks their own pre-operation inspection, and finishes the week with an individual equipment evaluation on each machine.
Five minutes to apply. No cost, no obligation, no catch — the program is grant funded start to finish.
