By: Lenore L. Liebau

Lenore L. Liebau — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 03:49:55 +0000

This means you girls too!!

By: Heavy Equipment Operator Training Schools Can Boost Your Career | Used Test Equipment

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:42:38 +0000

[...] Spotlight Oח Heavy Equipment Operators [...]

By: Meyer

Meyer — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:27:37 +0000

Hey, A.B., thanks for the comments and great story! If you haven’t yet, we’d love to have you join our tradesmen directory. Check it out over in the Tool Shed. We most certainly can benefit from a voice like yours around here! Thanks.

By: A.B. Crain

A.B. Crain — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:34:43 +0000

Very poignant ode to the dedicated Operator Mr. Meyer. From the time I was able to walk and follow my Dad and Grandpaw around, I wanted to be a heavy equipment operator (mostly Dozer and Hoe operator). My immediate family were mostly all tied to the logging industry in some fashion… from harvesting, to milling (lumber and paper) and to the final sale. My Dad and one brother were about the only ones that stepped outside the “family business” and went to work for the railroad, but they always helped my Grandpaw and a couple of my other Uncles in their spare time.
My Grandpaw had his own “Short wood” outfit and a small “Tie Mill” and custom lumber mill. I was running a skid tractor as soon as I could reach the clutch and steer at the same time. I was driving a pulp wood truck (or in the redneck vernacular… a “pupwood truck”) when I could see over the wheel. This just added fuel to my Tonka inspired fire!
I graduated High School with an almost free ride to college on academic scholarships in the top 5 of my class. I attended a 4 year college in the area for a almost 2 years slowly stagnating and going insane from being pent up inside listening to theory and conjecture from a teacher that couldn’t make it in the real world so they had to to teach to live.
I was saved from a life in purgatory by a high school friend that asked if I were interested in “goin pipelinin”. After girding my loins and gathering up my courage, I told my Mama I was quitting school and goin to work. After I rescucitated her and applied a cool compress, I patiently explained the madness to my method and told her in no uncertain terms that I could either flunk out of school on purpose to prove my point or quit now to go into a field I dearly dearly wanted to try. My Dad just smiled and told me in a whisper that this was goin to be a hard “row to hoe”, but that he always knew from the time I was 3 that I had diesel fuel in my vains. From there I never looked back. I was lucky enough to keep steady work in the pipeline fields for 2 years then saw the slowdown coming in the early 90′s and moved over to drill shaft foundations… I even did a stint as a railroad conductor for 2 years but was bored to the point of tears and went back to the foundation business…
I work for a smaller company that makes its money on doing the impossible in the Energy Transmission Industry. Every wonder how that huge transmission tower was built over a river, or deep in the swamps of South Louisiana or over the mountains of Tennessee… We have a rep for doing the impossible in an impossible time surmounting impossible odds.
While I do still operate, I moved over to welding and truck driving with the same company to keep my mind working and from stagnating myself. A note to your readers that the more you can do well, the more oppurtunities you have and the more you enjoy your chosen job. Not only can I operate anything that drinks diesel, I can haul it, work on it and rebuild it from the ground up if asked to. So to all my fellow “Operators” diversify and divide to conquer. Have fun and be safe always!

Comments on: Spotlight On Heavy Equipment Operators

By: Lenore L. Liebau

By: Heavy Equipment Operator Training Schools Can Boost Your Career | Used Test Equipment

By: Meyer

By: A.B. Crain