Explosives Handler Training Program graduates first class

COLLEGE STATION – A dozen employees from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) recently graduated from the inaugural Explosives Handler Training Program at the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX). The program is an innovative partnership between TEEX and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to train employees to safely work with explosives.

Brian Cracchiola, manager of the High Explosives Applications Facility at LLNL, said one of Livermore’s core capabilities is explosives R&D. He searched for an outside organization to provide training and found TEEX, which has a program to certify unexploded ordnance handlers within its Law Enforcement and Security Training division.

TEEX and LLNL explosives experts developed a new blended learning Explosives Handler curriculum. Participants take 40 hours of online training before coming to TEEX for two weeks of immersive, hands-on training at the RELLIS campus. A capstone exercise occurs in a mock laboratory modeled to replicate labs at LLNL.

“We are getting tremendous feedback from the students,” Cracchiola said. “In one case, the manager has already blocked out the dates in November to attend himself! We are extremely fortunate and appreciative to have partnered with TEEX.”