The company opened its first office opened for business in August 1996 in Lakewood, Colorado and opted to stay in the community when moving to their present office in August 2003.

“Our founding mission to supply sound engineering and help advance the state-of-the-art of bulk maternal handling in the mining industry has proven very exciting and challenging,” company president Mark Alspaugh told International Longwall News.

Company founders Alspaugh and William Zimmermann continue to play very active roles in Overland as it heads towards a decade of operations, with Zimmermann remaining the board chairman.

“We wish to thank all of our clients and friends who helped us along the way,” said Alspaugh. “We are definitely looking forward to the next 10 years and hope to provide even better engineering services and support to the industry.”

In observance of the milestone, the company attended a baseball game, hosted an open house and held a golf tournament for its clients, family and friends.

With the 10-year milestone marked, Overland Conveyor will carry on with business as usual, announcing the schedule for its Belt Analyst II training program workshops through the end of 2007.

The workshops will offer three levels – introduction, intermediate and advanced. The workshops have been well received by industry and Overland has responded by undertaking the construction of a new state-of-the-art belt conveyor training centre.

The range of course offerings and schedules is also growing. While the schedule for the expanded classes are not yet set, “we are going to be offering more topics such as transfer chutes [and] maintenance,” Alspaugh said.

“We have had as many as 40 people attend in the past, but now we try to limit to 12 per event, offering the class four times a year,” he said, adding that students have travelled from Australia, Europe and Brazil to attend, making the sessions internationally acclaimed.

The introductory course is designed for individuals new to belt conveyors or the company’s Belt Analyst II software, including course elements such as computer-aided belt design, interpretation, and data entry.

The intermediate level helps students understand how belt conveyors work and examines items such as system design concepts, the selection of proper components and practice scenarios using real-life problems.

In the advanced sessions cover design for difficult applications, with students trained to meet the requirements for designing large belt conveyors; route selection for multiple flights versus horizontal curves; and start/stop dynamic analysis.

The levels can be taken one at a time or two at the same time, Alspaugh said, with all levels being over the course of each of the following weeks in 2006 and 2007:

2006 courses will be held on September 25-29 and December 4-8. The 2007 courses will be held on March 5-9; June 4-8; September 17-21; and December 3-7.

All classes are held at the company’s Littleton, Colorado facility.

“Belt Analyst II has become the premier belt conveyor engineering analysis tool in North America and perhaps the world. Our users include mining companies, engineering firms, OEMs and component manufacturers from all around the world,” Alspaugh said.

“Conveyors, just like everything else, are becoming more and more complex, and good training programs are more important than ever,” he said.

Overland Conveyor grants completion certificates for each of their offered programs and are accredited to give CEUs (Continuing Education Credits) for all sessions.