Blade Repair Academy’s Expert Technician Training

Blade Repair Academy in Tennessee offers comprehensive blade repair
training programs for technicians. Alfred Crabtree, Founder and
CEO, and Sheryl Weinstein from SkySpecs highlight the importance of
technician competency, hands-on experience, and standardization in
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YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the
show? Email us! Allen Hall: Alfred and Sheryl, welcome to the
program. Sheryl Weinstein: Thanks. Allen Hall: So we're in Dunlap,
Tennessee, not too far from Nashville, uh, and also close to.
Chattanooga Chattanooga, and we're in the Smoky Mountains ish
region. We're Alfred Crabtree: no, we're, we're, you could consider
it Appalachia for sure. Sure. Okay. Uh, we're on the, in the valley
called the Seche Valley, uh, which splits the Cumberland Plateau.
So we're, we're in a valley and we have hills a thousand feet above
us here. Yeah. Either way. It's beautiful. Joel Saxum: Yeah. It's a
great drive in here. Alfred Crabtree: Yeah. It's a unique place.
Yeah. Allen Hall: And we're at Blade Repair Academy, which, uh, if
you're not familiar with Blade Repair Academy, you should be. Uh,
because a lot of the good training that happens in the United
States actually happens to play repair, repair Care blade, repair
academy. Uh, yeah, it's been a long week at uh, OMS this week and
we got the introduction today. This is the first time we've been on
site. That's right. And, uh, we wanted to see all the cool things
that are happening [00:01:00] here. And it really comes down to
technician training competency. Working with blades, working with
tools, knowing what you're doing up tower when you're on the blade,
which is hard to train. It's really hard to train, and both you and
Cheryl have a ton of experience being up on blades and repairing
blades and scarfing and doing all the critical features that have
to happen to make blades work today. It's a tough training regimen.
There's a lot to it and a lot of subtleties that don't always get
transferred over from teachers to students unless you have. Done it
for a number of years. You wanna kind of just walk through the
philosophy of Blade Repair Academy? Alfred Crabtree: Yes. The, uh,
you've, you've outlined quite well some of the issues. The
environment where we work is very hard to take a ti the time to put
somebody through a training regimen. We're so constrained by
weather windows and then. You know, even if the weather's nice,
lightning can come, wind [00:02:00] speeds can cut off your
workday. So production, production, production is what's important.
And Cheryl and I both come from the rope access method. And in the
rope access method, 95% of the time you're up there alone. And if
you're up there and you're producing, you've got your blinders on.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Alfred Crabtree: And you're not ready to share
with somebody else what to do. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Alfred Crabtree:
With the basket or platform, you can have two even three people up
on Blade, but it still has all these constraints of get the job
done, get the job done. There's a lot of stress up there. And
having the bandwidth to take on new information or to challenge
some preconceived notions or try, that's not the place to do it. So
knowing that. Blade Repair Academy is built so that we have an
environment that simulates all of the up tower stuff without being
up tower. And you're gonna have the time you need to invest in your
learning without consequences. Right. So it's a very much a
[00:03:00] about creating the right environment to uptake the new
information. And we have found a lot of help from. Manufacturers
and suppliers in the industry to sponsor us because obviously it
behooves them to have their materials in the hands of trainees. So
we're also able to help companies come up with, uh, new solutions,
try new products. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Alfred Crabtree: New, uh, you
know, what's the best practice. For this, if you're up on Blade and
you have a way of top coating and you get a new product and your
way of top coating doesn't suit that product, well chuck it down.
I'll never touch it again. Yeah. Because I did not perform well
here we can, we can give you training. We have, of course, been
trained by the suppliers about what's the best product to use,
what's the best way to go about things, and then, and then we can
disseminate it. So that's the fundamental reason why the space is.
Is [00:04:00] what it is. Joel Saxum: Yeah. And I think that
that's, that's a good segue to be honest with you, right here,
right behind these doors you have a classroom. That's right. Right.
So in this facility, all composed in one, we have a classroom here
we have your additive and subtractive. I liked how you said that to
us when you're giving us the tour. Uh, but we've got a, a grinding
booth basically over here and we've got, um, a layup area here
where you can teach. 16 people at a time. Alfred Crabtree: That's
right. Yeah. That would be max Joel Saxum: for sure. Alfred
Crabtree: Yeah. Sheryl Weinstein: And in a vertical surface, so,
'cause all the stuff that you're doing in the field, right, is
always in a vertical surface. Mm-hmm. So there's a, there is a big
difference between working where gravity is sort of against you,
especially with larger laminations and things like that. So being
able to do your training and simulate the same, a similar way that
you would work in the field is pretty critical, I would think.
Allen Hall: And actually working on. Actual repairs. Simulated
repairs, yeah. Mm-hmm. Now, don't explain how you created them,
because I know secret sauce. It's a secret sauce. Yes. But I did
look at the blade [00:05:00] damage. It, it looks exactly like a
lightly strike. Yeah. Which a predominant amount of repairs are
about, unless there's, you know, serial defects, as Cheryl has
pointed out numerous times, but. Being able to repair something
that's quasi real is critical because we've been to other places
and the repairs are, well, I'll take a hammer and I'll hit this
and, okay, sure you got a DA, you gotta repair that. But that's not
real. And getting, getting the people to use the tools in the right
way, vertically Speaker 2: mm-hmm. Allen Hall: Is the key. Because
although the, the, the article, the test sample isn't moving around
like you are up on a blade, it's still difficult. And unless you
have the proper techniques and the approaches, yeah, it's gonna be
dang near impossible. We explain some of the blade repairs that
Joel and I have seen more recently is like. It's a little rough and
it shouldn't have to be so rough because it is a skill that you
have to learn and acquire over time. But you have to know the
fundamentals. That's what Blade Repair Academy is here to teach you
those [00:06:00] fundamentals. Like, yes, it's gonna take time, but
if you work it this way, at least you're gonna be successful.
Alfred Crabtree: Yeah. And if you're managing a team of employees
who are doing this, it, it would be great to have the insight of
what your teams. Strengths and weaknesses are, yeah, you can figure
out how to deploy people, but also how to, you know, maybe fix some
of those problems. Mm-hmm. Our panels that you brought up are
standardized. Everyone looks exactly the same. It's the exact same
makeup, and we standardize the damage. So when somebody has to
repair damage here, the core removal size is the same on everyone.
That way when we're comparing the reports, you can actually have a
apples to apples comparison of the, the trainees. Outcome. Speaker
2: Mm-hmm. Alfred Crabtree: And now you, you know, in, in the model
that you talked about where people will go to a, you know, their
junkyard of blades and they'll find spots on blades to put their
eight guys on. Those eight people are not gonna be doing the same
repair. And even if they are collecting data, what are you
[00:07:00] comparing? It's not Joel Saxum: apples to apples. Yeah.
It's not. Alfred Crabtree: So we really tried to start from the
beginning, fresh with a whole new idea of how to approach this.
Mm-hmm. By not being attached to an ISP, we don't have to deal
with. Oh, here, use all our leftovers. Yeah. Yeah. That's your
training budget. Yeah. Yeah. And oh yeah. We, you know, we're an,
we're a owner operator, so yeah. Go work on that blade in the
grass. Mm-hmm. That those limit what precious time we have
available to train. Yeah. So this thing from the ground up is
about. Making as much advance in the skillset and understanding
that technician in the, in the week that they're here. Joel Saxum:
I think that was a really cool thing we touched on as well. Your,
your team here as well, Cheryl. Thanks for traveling up to, to hang
out with us. Offer some insights too. But you guys, because you've
been in the people that have developed a curriculum yourself,
Cheryl, your, some of your team sitting over here, uh, and, and
people around the industry that have helped out with the place, you
have the ability of like, okay, we have. Eight brand new
technicians. Let's make [00:08:00] sure we walk through how to
measure from the trailing edge to the blade center up, mark this
thing out, these kind of things all the way to some stuff that I
didn't really think about that much. Like I've used an angle
grinder before, right? But I've never looked at five different ones
and decided which one would be the best for my hands. Thinking
about it up on the blade, how you'd handle it with your fingers,
these kind of things like,