Jill James

Welcome to MSHA Part 46 and 48, Q&A.

This live stream is brought to you by HSI Learning Systems, an HSI company.

My name is Jill James, Chief Safety Officer with HSI, and your host today. Thank you all so much for being here.

Our intention for our time together is to answer the most common questions we get asked about Part 46 and 48, Mine Safety and Health Administration, or MSHA Training. If you have a question along the way, please enter your question in the chat window. Our producer, Will, is monitoring the chat and he'll make sure that we see them.

So now I'd like you to meet our experts today. And please meet Andrea and Dusty. Andrea, wondering if you could please introduce yourself to the audience?

Andrea Bamford

Absolutely. Thank you, Jill. My name is Andrea Bamford. I am an MSHA specialist with HSI Learning Systems, as Jill said, an HSI company. I have been with the company for approximately four years, specializing in both MSHA Part 46 and Part 48. Prior to my life as an MSHA expert I spent many years in the banking industry. We look forward to answering questions today and we'll let Dusty take it from here.

Jill James

All right, Dusty, tell us about yourself.

Dusty Willis

So like Jill said, my name is Dusty Willis. I am the lead instructor here for the live Part 48 training. Prior to HSI, I've been with HSI for about a year. So prior to HSI I worked with Freeport-McMoRan as a health and safety specialist in the mining industry. We kind of had both MSHA and OSHA, but I mainly was in the MSHA side of the business. So prior to that I worked in the field as an EMT on an ambulance, just running your typical 911 calls. But fresh out of high school I went into mining. So cumulative I have about 12 years total mining experience. And here I am with HSI.

Jill James

Awesome. Thank you Dusty. Thank you Andrea.

And let's jump right into our questions. So Will, if you wouldn't mind pushing our first question out. It's a Part 46 question and the question is what materials does the Part 46 training cover?

Andrea Bamford

All right, so I will go ahead and take this one. The Part 46 covers people who are going to be going onto aggregate mine sites. Aggregates are anything, rock, sand, gravel, cement, answer, in nonmetals.

Jill James

All right, thank you. And so our next question, Will, if you wouldn't mind pushing it out.

So how does the 46 New Miner and Refresher training work?

Andrea Bamford

So the Part 46, New Miner and Refresher are both online courses. They are available to be taken 24 hours a day at the miner's convenience. For the Part 46, our program is a content-only program. At the end you will receive a training record that is required to be filled out by a competent person at the company. The competent person is going to be someone who's in charge of health and safety or a direct supervisor. Each training has a number of modules that the students will complete and at the end of each module there is a test. So there are numerous tests throughout the training. Once those are passed, you can move on to the next module until you receive either the eight hours of training for the Refresher or 24 hours for the New Miner.

Jill James

All right, thank you Andrea. Let's see, our next question.

If a company uses a computer-based training program for their Part 46 training, who is considered the competent person?

Andrea Bamford

Well, I guess I kind of jumped ahead of myself there. The competent person is either going to be the person in charge of health and safety at the company, or a direct supervisor. It's someone who verifies that the person did indeed take the training and is the person responsible for signing off on their certificate upon completion.

Jill James

All right, thank you Andrea. And I think we're ready for our next question.

What if I don't have a training plan? Good question.

Andrea Bamford

That is a great question and we have a very easy answer. So for the Part 46, companies are not required to have a training plan on file with MSHA. They are required to have a training plan on file at their company and HSI provides a training program template in the first lesson of either the Refresher or New Miner, that simply has to be printed out and there are a few sections that need filled in with company specific information.

Jill James

Wonderful, thank you. And here comes our next question.

What are the site specific lesson? Where are these completed?

Andrea Bamford

The site specific lessons are like it says, completed at the site. Because they are specific to each new mine that you enter on. So every time you go onto a new mine you will have to do some training specific. One of those, for example is the mine tour. You are required to take a tour of each new mine you work at. Those are completed generally by the health and safety director at the mine. And the topics can vary a little depending on what they want to cover. The main one however, is that mine tour.

Jill James

All right, thank you. Andrea you're doing great. Thanks a lot.

If I've not completed my online training, can I work on the mine that requires the Part 46 certificate?

Andrea Bamford

So this one is a little tricky because it's really up to the mine. So as long as you have completed an initial four hours of training, you can go work on the mine site, technically. However, most mine sites require you complete the entire training prior to getting on their site. Just it helps cover their bases and that way they don't have as much tracking to do in terms of how long have you been on this site with only four hours of training? And have you completed it yet? So it's really up to the mine site in those instances.

Jill James

All right. Thank you. It makes sense, makes sense. We're ready for our next question.

How long do I have to complete my training?

Andrea Bamford

Once you begin your Part 46 training you have 45 days from the day of start to complete the initial eight hours or your MSHA required lessons. From there you have an extra 45 days to complete the remaining 16 hours of training if you're taking refresher training.

Jill James

Okay. All right. Very good. Next question.

How many hours must I complete each day?

Andrea Bamford

Well, that is completely up to you. You can do as much or as little as you want each day. It is a totally self-paced course.

Jill James

All right, very good, very good.

When will I receive my certificate?

Andrea Bamford

You will be able to print out your certificate at any time during the course. Upon completion you can print the completed certificate, the New Miner and Refresher for Part 46 actually come with what's called a training record. It is a three to four page document, unlike with the Part 48, and you'll receive that as soon as you're completed.

Jill James

Okay. All right.

So our next question is how much does the Part 46 New miner and Refresher training cost?

Andrea Bamford

Both of the trainings for Part 46 are $150.

Jill James

All right, very good.

All right, Dusty, I think it's your turn with some Part 48 questions.

Dusty Willis

Good deal.

Jill James

All right. First question. What materials does the Part 48 training cover?

Dusty Willis

So the Part 48 training covers all required subjects under Part 48, which are required under Part 48, which is under 48-25. Now 48 covers the metal, non-metal mine sites as well as coal mine sites and some non-metal mine sites as well. So a kind of a neat little trick. If you take your Part 48 training, you can actually go to any Part 46 mine and that Part 48 training will be accepted. Because Part 48 is considered to be a, I don't want to say necessarily a higher level training, but it kind of is a higher level training because you receive a live instructor who is an MSHA certified instructor with Part 48. Whereas Part 46, that's not necessarily required.

Jill James

Okay, very good. Very good. Next question.

Does HSI have an MSHA-approved training plan? Who can they train?

Dusty Willis

So we do have an MSHA-approved training plan. Our training plan is approved through the Western District. However, we can train anybody that needs to go to any mine site throughout the United States, a contractor, vendor, even mining companies themselves. We can do training for just about anybody in a Part 48 mine that's going to pretty-much any mine site throughout the country.

Jill James

Okay, very good. Very good. Our next question.

How does the 48 New Miner training work?

Dusty Willis

So the New Miner training, we have an online virtual classroom, which we use through Adobe Connect. And through that classroom the students will appear on webcam along with the instructor. And then it's just pretty-much like any other live training that you go to where you sit in a hard plastic chair and listening to an instructor drone on and on. The only difference is obviously you're at home or you're in your office and you're on webcam. And one of the major differences between our training and a normal live training is our online lessons that you sign into as a part of the 48 content. So through those online lessons you actually get exposed to our Bedford Butte mine, which is a virtual mine site that we run. And basically the students get to become safety professionals at Bedford Butte through training and they get to help out with safety issues and all kinds of neat little tasks that they do there with Bedford Butte.

Jill James

Interesting. And you are not one of the instructors that drones on and on, Dusty, right?

Dusty Willis

No. Not anymore.

Jill James

Of course not. All right.

So our next question is how much does the 48 New Miner cost?

Dusty Willis

I'll let Andrea take that one.

Jill James

Okay.

Andrea Bamford

So I actually work on the sales team, so a little bit better equipped to take this question. The New Miner training for Part 48 is $499 a student. Keep in mind that there there are discounts offered for large groups and if those questions arise, you do have a large group, feel free to give us a call and we're happy to answer those questions.

Jill James

Okay, very good. Very good. Another question.

When will I receive my 5000-23 certificate? I hope I said that right, Dusty.

Dusty Willis

You did, perfect.

Jill James

Okay.

Dusty Willis

So you will receive your 5000-23 upon completion of the training whether it's 48 New Miner or 48 Refresher. So with the 48 New Miner, we issue the certificates as soon as all of the lessons are completed and once the eight hour time requirement for Thursday, which is the last day of our training, completing the 24 hour requirement. With the annual refresher it's pretty-much, I mean we have to actually go in and physically approve and then send those 5000-23s out, but within a day, less than a few hours usually.

Jill James

Wow fast. Great. All right.

Next question is, how does the Part 48 Refresher training work?

Dusty Willis

So the park 48 Refresher is very similar to the New Miner. You sign into an Adobe Connect classroom, you appear on webcam. That way... And I guess I should explain the webcam requirements. So for HSI to be able to deliver both 48 New Miner and annual Refresher via the internet, they put a requirement on us for all students and instructors to appear on webcam. That way we can make sure that the student's actually present and engaged in the program and paying attention or at least look like they're paying attention. And it's just an insurance policy to make sure that they're present.

So with the 48 Refresher, you sign into the Adobe Connect classroom. The only major difference is there is no live instructors. So the 48 Refresher is a work-at-your-own-pace kind of thing. It's an eight hour class just like any other Part 48 Refresher, but you can do it at your own pace. So you can do all eight hours in one day. You can do four hours a day in two days, or you can do one hour a day for eight days. The only minimum requirement is that you do a minimum of 30 minutes per session. And so that's a requirement by regulation.

Jill James

Okay very good. Very good.

When will I... I think we already asked that question. When will we receive the 5000-23 certificate? We covered that one. All right. And we covered the 48 Refresher cost.

Andrea Bamford

We haven't covered the cost of 48 Refresher.

Dusty Willis

No we didn't cover the cost yet.

Jill James

Oh we didn't. Okay, so the Refresher 48 cost, Andrea please.

Andrea Bamford

So the Part 48 Refresher training costs $199 per person.

Jill James

Okay. Okay. Very good. Thank you so much. All right. And so we have... All right.

So we have gone through all of the questions that have been asked, the most common questions that people ask us about 48 and 46 training. And seeing that we don't have any coming in right now I'll just give it a second in case someone has a burning last minute, "Oh, I forgot to ask this question." And we do actually.

So Ashley is asking, "When someone takes either 46 or 48 New Miner training after completion of your training modules, are your training certificates marked as complete? Therefore can a miner immediately go to work at a mine site?"

Dusty Willis

So that's a actually a really great question. There has been a change that has come from MSHA proper where cooperative trainers such as HSI or any other person that's not directly involved with a mine site that conducts Part 48 training in particular. They used to be able to check the 5000-23 as complete. Now that MSHA has made this change, and it's not really a change. It's just previously they didn't really adhere strictly to the regulation as it was written under 4825, section 4, which says that, "A tour must be included in the New Miner training program." So now they are strictly adhering to that regulation. So now, whenever they receive training from us or any other cooperative trainer...

Now, I should back up. Not all cooperative trainers have been made aware of this change. This change is new from MSHA. HSI happened to get caught up in it very early on in the change so some cooperative trainers have not been made aware of it as of yet. But now whenever we complete the 5000-23, it has a date as our portion, the bulk of the training is completed. It has a check mark and then it says on the 5000-23, it says basically, "Check this box if not completed and go to section 5." So under section 5 of the 5000-23, every box is checked except for introduction to the work environment, which is the portion that is covered at the mine site. So when you go to the mine site and receive your site-specific hazard awareness training, the person that provides that site's specific hazard awareness training to you then fills out a separate 5000-23 and all they do is check "Introduction to the Work Environment" and that completes that portion.

Now let me make this clear that the training that you receive from HSI, this does not mean that it's not complete. It is a complete training. The only difference is you have to have that tour. So, and since every mine site under 4831 is required to provide that site-specific hazard awareness training, all they got to do is fill out the 5000-23 and that's it.

Jill James

Dusty, thank you for that. And if it's not apparent to everyone by now, you are the expert, quoting chapter and verse of the regulations. Love it. Love it.

Ashley, thank you for the question. Hopefully that answers your question. And wondering if anyone else has a question, you want to shoot it our way quickly. Otherwise we'll call it a wrap for this Q&A.

Dusty Willis

And while we wait for another question, if I could just kind of throw something in here. So I've been through quite a few new miner and annual refresher trainings in my time in the mining industry. And this isn't just bias because I'm the lead instructor for HSI, I can assure you that the program that you receive from HSI really will be the best new miner and annual refresher training program that you will ever receive anywhere from any cooperative trainer or even mine site trainer. Because not only do you get the live instructor, the typical lecture and the videos and those types of things, but you get that online lesson experience where you go to our virtual mine site. So you get twice as much content from HSI that you get from your typical brick and mortar training company.

Jill James

Interesting. Interesting. Thank you for that nugget, Dusty.

Dusty Willis

Absolutely.

Jill James

Andrea, is there anything else on your side that you'd like to share that you think maybe wasn't covered or asked today?

Andrea Bamford

Not that I can think of. The Part 46 training, which is where I covered is really straightforward. And then of course any questions that may come up after we're done on our live stream, feel free to post them in the comments on the Facebook post and I will definitely make sure we get back to you. And then also our website at MSHATrainingOnline.com. My direct information is there as well. So if anything comes up and you have any questions, my phone number and email are both listed on that site.

Jill James

Okay, very good. Andrea, do you want to run over the prices one more time?

Andrea Bamford

Yeah. So Part 46 New Miner and Refresher have the same pricing at $150 per student. Part 48 New Miner is 499 per person and Part 48 Refresher is 199 per person.

Jill James

Very good. Thank you.

Thank you so much and thanks to everyone for joining today and for the work that you all do. Hopefully we've clarified some of your questions. If you'd like to learn more about our training that we offer or ask more questions, as Andrea said, you can visit MSHATrainingOnline.com or also the Facebook post that is associated with this live today. So that's MSHA, M-S-H-A TrainingOnline.com.

And until next time, thank you so much for listening and participating.

Dusty Willis

Thank you, Jill.

Andrea Bamford

Thank you.

Learn more about mining safety today.