Apparatus Maintenance School Held in Elmira
—photo by R. F. Wallen.
More than 70 foreign and domestic fire department personnel attended two weeklong schools on maintenance of fire apparatus at the American LaFrance plant in Elmira, N. Y., the weeks of October 17 and 24.
Each school presented 30 hours of instruction of which 4 ½ hours were classroom, with the balance being hands-on training. The school focused on the Century Series apparatus with sessions covering maintenance and repair of American LaFrance Twinflow pumps, aerial ladders including hydraulic systems, the federal anti-skid braking system and overall trouble-shooting, plus preventive maintenance.
The six school instructors represented a broad cross section of expertise. They were Arnondo Andrein, Jr., Ronald Mengel and Edward Yanich of the service department; Herbert Furman, manufacturing; Richard Wallen, sales; and Arthur Zimmer, engineering.
Henry Kaeser, American LaFrance president, commented: “We developed the service school to fill what we felt was a growing need within the fire service for greater internal capabilities to do preventive maintenance and trouble-shooting. The response and comments from those attending have assured us that the schools are indeed needed and that they were a definite success. Because of their success, we have planned more schools for 1978.”
Each week of training concluded with a graduation dinner, with each graduate receiving a certificate. Many of those attending indicated they would be training other personnel at their home fire departments. Countries represented included Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, and there were personnel from nearly half the 50 states.
