The National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators last week announced that it has been awarded accreditation by the American National Standards Institute for two of its newest certification programs. The CCO Rigger Level II and Articulating Crane Operator certifications are now accredited by ANSI to the ISO/IEC 17024 International Standard for organizations that certify personnel.

NCCCO also announced that it had been granted continued accreditation by ANSI for its previously accredited programs: Mobile Crane Operator, Tower Crane Operator, Overhead Crane Operator, Rigger Level I, and Signalperson.

The decision of ANSI’s Personnel Certification Accreditation Committee to expand the scope of NCCCO’s accreditation came after rigorous audits of its management systems and psychometric procedures, as well as detailed scrutiny of its written and practical test development and administrative processes.

“ANSI represents the highest standard of accreditation available,” said NCCCO commission chairman, Kerry Hulse. “Candidates and employers alike can now be assured that, with ANSI’s independent verification of NCCCO’s programs, CCO Articulating Crane Operator and Rigger Level II certifications meet the highest professional standards of examination development and administration. As with NCCCO’s other ANSI-accredited certification programs, these two additional certifications help to ‘close the loop’ regarding crane safety on the jobsite.”

“OSHA’s new rules for Cranes and Derricks in Construction — 29 CFR 1926, Subpart CC — require operators of articulating cranes used in construction to be certified as of Nov. 10, 2014,” said NCCCO executive director Graham Brent. “Riggers, on the other hand, must now be ‘qualified,’ and certification under NCCCO’s Rigger Level II program is an excellent way to show that riggers are qualified to rig non-routine jobs that require independent thinking without supervision.”

Accreditation of certifying bodies is a requirement of OSHA’s new rule published last year and is increasingly being required by state regulators in their attempts to ensure quality of the certifications issued. Fully three-fourths of the states that have requirements for crane operators and related trades now require or recognize NCCCO certification.

For more information about CCO certification programs, visit the NCCCO website at www.nccco.org.

NCCCO is an independent, non-profit organization established in 1995 to develop and administer a nationwide program for the certification of crane operators. Since then NCCCO has administered more than 570,000 accredited written and practical examinations to more than 100,000 operators in all 50 states.