G day All. I'm currently days away from finishing school. My life long dream has always been to become a heavy equipment operator (particularly excavator) since i was a kid and now I've done some growing and am still just as passionate. I dont know if this is relatable but when i was younger i would regularly ride my bike to construction sites when they were working and just sit and watch the machinery work. I still to this day get enjoyment out of watching them work and constantly dream about operating them. Ive done some research recently and am seriously struggling to find how you become an operator? I'm pretty keen and am not afraid to put in some physical labor. If anyone has some advice and tips or how you personally became an operator I'd love to know. Cheers guys
Get a crew cut, beer gut and criminal record, and you'll be set for life... Just kidding Seriously, get a job in the field, tell your boss you want to learn to be a machine operator. If you show up on time, and prove to be dependable, and have a good record at the job, I can't imagine you will be turned down...
And don't expect to get a seat in a new machine the first day on the job. Might have to spend a couple years with a wooden handled shovel in your hands. If company says wear hard hat and glasses all the time on job do it. Leave cell phone in your car, we lived for decades without them, you can make it through a work shift without one! If someone really needs to contact you have them call the company office and they will get in touch with you! These ideas are not just aimed at getting to operate a machine but work anywhere in just about any company.
CANNOT reinforce what has been stated any harder!! I did the same in the early 60's watching Glosier Construction operators run belly pans, old open station articulated rubber tire cats as push tractors, using wheel trenchers to set sewer lines and sat watching them offering cold water on hot days as I could to get a little guy some seat time on huge machines with REAL operators. Illegal as hell and loved every minute of it! Offer to come in at whatever low level they will hire, accept the dirt, grunge and hard effort as it will get you where you want to go. Today's operators also get schooling once in the 'Hall' and card carrying so they can qualify as 'Trainees' on machines, takes time but time well spent.
I really appreciate the replies so far.
Sometimes when bigger jobs are starting it is a good chance to get hired on. Maybe show up every day before work starts to see if they need someone. If they realize you will show up every day without any drama, and they have an empty seat, you might get it.
All good advice here. One to add is when they ask you if you have experience be honest with them. Nothing worse than putting a person on a machine with expectations that can not be realized. Be happy when they put you on a compactor or a roller. Its a more important job than most realize. Another thing as stated, safety glasses and hardhat when they tell you to and show up wearing long pants, work shoes, and 3 inch sleeves on your t-shirt. You would not get on our jobs with out that.
One other method that some of us had access to, is to simply spend a large part of any savings you have on buying a worn out version of what you are interested in, and the rest of your savings on parts to try and keep it running. If you have a situation where you can store it, and even better somewhere to run it, you can learn about it in your own time. That's how I started 30 years ago and maybe still am doing it today to a degree when it comes to getting into an aspect of work that haven't done before ( hopefully with less worn out kit than what I started with!) Think you have to be fairly keen, and have the right circumstances, but it can produce very capable operators.
Old Iron nailed it. More than once I've hired "experienced" operators only to find out they couldn't make the blade or bucket hit the ground consistently after bragging about how good of an operator they are. Like OIH said there is nothing worse, those guys did not stick around. Be honest that you don't have experience but want to learn. Show them with your work ethic your serious, in this day and age a youngster who is not afraid to work is like gold. Case in point I saw today. I have a young kid that is not afraid to do anything we ask him to do, hard damn worker. We're doing a small job hauling off some spoils in a new residential subdivision. The super put him on the 953 shuttling dirt from the cut to a pile it, to be loaded out. I watched him operate for a few minutes and asked the super has he ever been on the loader before? Super replied, nope first time. HMMM I thought as I watched him go from the cut to the pile. At quitting time I asked the young operator if he'd ever been on a 953 before, knowing the answer. He replied - it's my first time but the loader control is just like a backhoe. I told him good job, we're going to put you on the loader more. The kid has the knack for it, smoother than I was when I first got in the seat of a 953. We never know how it's going to work out until you jump right in and give it a try.
Some are just naturals!!
I think that's a big part of it, DMiller.
+1 on being honest about your experience. Nothing wrong with saying you're fascinated by the machines and would like to learn to operate them. Better to surprise a potential employer than say you've run equipment and can't back it up. Sitting in a machine and using the controls for 10 minutes doesn't count as experience but if you've ran a truck or tractor on the farm for sure mention it. Some people do have a knack for operating and some should stay as far away as possible.
I've been fortunate to run across a few in my career DMiller. Actually fascinates me as I had to work the skills to become a proficient operator. One kid we had 10 years ago had the knack as well. Noticed he could keep a rock fill lift going correctly and efficient. He would position the trucks, keep the large rocks pushed off the face and kept the fines to fill in as the lift progressed. He had very little experience on equipment when we hired him. So we had a 27 lot subdivision that was ready to grade for curb and gutter. Talked with my super and we decided to baptize him by fire. Sent the D5G and him to the project. I met him there and told him to grade the road out following the stakes and make the water go towards the inlets. Then I left. Came back 2 days later, letting him do it right by himself and it was beautiful. The roads flowed smoothly and even had a crown in the middle. I got out of the truck and asked him - "You can see grade can't you." He just shrugged his shoulders rather sheepishly and said "I guess". Told him -"Keep it up, good damn job." Just a natural.
Got partly blinded in my left eye in '87, I can now see grade, hard to describe but with no depth perception of any value I can cut to a finite dimension I could not before then. Cut our foundation hole with the worn out Allis, was within 1/2" end to end per the concrete contractor, not bad for a 'one eyed fat boy'!! I can see off level, pisses me off when someone says a job is done and I can see is not.
I can never attain a 2A cert due to my left eye. 20/100 on bad days 20/50 on good ones, close but no cigar but can run internal building cranes/fixed cranes. Got pretty adept at putting new nuclear fuel into the plant and receipt of same, my supervisors 'had never seen anyone so at ease and connective with the facility's contrary installed cranes'. Could set a 14' 11x11" assembly in a 11 1/2"x11 1/2" box almost without assistance on the floor guiding it. Could pull and set shipping casks as if I could feel them on the hook, other crew mates hated when someone else ran the cranes.
I took a heavy equipment course in college along with surveying, got a job leveling land which is big in our valley, making big money $3.25 LOL, June 1974
I was born into a Grading/Excavating family. When I was old enough to talk and wipe my own butt I rode the grader at least every other day with my Grandfather , he was a finish grade artist. When I was 7 I was allowed to play with the JD backhoe loader in the sand pit... by 10 Dad had me pushing sand dunes with a 9G, by 13 I was on a twin engine elevating scraper. Not sure how I became an operator. Later I found out there was more money in fixing the stuff than running it. I still play in the dirt when I can.
Pretty much my story, except add about 3 years to each step. Repowered a IH 2600 with a Cummins 8.3 when I was 15, went through Diesel Tech at NDSCS, now I'm the fixer AND the operator.
I started about the same time DPete . Cant think of a better way to start out then a Terex TS 14 . LOL ! http://www.heavytruckforums.com/showthread.php?263-Some-Holmes-750-action&p=2598&viewfull=1#post2598
No foam ear plugs in those days, had a box of cotton in the tool box for ear protection, I ran a 14A D8, they had a straight pipe off the manifold + squeaking tracks, just about the same db as your Jimmy. Thought we died and went to heaven when the foam plugs came out.
I remember the first hearing protection we were offered Almost worthless so bought my own earmuffs Was necessity when looking at exhaust ports on engines at high throttle trying to find the oil using cylinder Then as noted screeching dry pin rails Open station work Trucks or equipment no mufflers short stacks no A/C and little insulation in the cabs to start with Worst truck I drove 1976 White conventional Velvet Ride tandem Had to remember to take a box of rags on winter to stuff in the holes to get enough heat to defro
Started as a labourer, said I knew how to operate a bobcat skidsteer when I didn't, figured it out (job was alone on 5 acres cleaning up contaminated dirt). Eventually got shown to run a telehandler to bring steel into the shop. Got my class 3 to drive fuel trucks on the airport. Eventually made my way into a mini ex and a 950 loader cause there was no one else with "machinery experience", which led to bigger machines in time. Still not a dream team operator but... I'd highly recommend getting your class 1/3/commercial drivers, helps to get jobs especially as an operator. Also where there's trucks here's often equipment not too far. Another tip would be to watch good operators in action, where's their bucket,blade etc. How are they accomplishing the task. If you don't know,ask!!! Took me too long to do that last one. Don't be afraid to hop out of the machine and help on the goon spoon too. Best of luck
It was 1966 and I was 14. I started poking chokers behind a Cat operated by my uncle. It was a WW II surplus D7 with a Carco arch behind it and two 1-1/4 x 40 chokers. My 16 year old cousin worked behind the other D7 with the same set up, within the week, we were both running Cat and setting our own chokers. When we finished up that setting, we went to work pioneering logging road. I learned to grade with a cable blade. That served me well; small bites and don’t mess with the blade so much. (Changing a blade cable by yourself that you broke educates you quick.) My uncle was running shovel loading logs. Later that summer he broke me in on a 1954 KW with a 4X4 and a 220 Cummins straight stack with 12’ bunks and 8’ stakes. A 5 mile haul to the sort yard. I was in 7th heaven by the end of summer. My uncle supplemented the work ethic my Dad had taught me: Nothing was fast enough and criticism was always done at full volume and with interesting “magic words.” What a summer. I remember wages that summer were $1.15/hour. BTW, two other things I learned that summer; don’t drink too much beer, you get sick. And, avoid bar fights. I got drunk once in my life, it was that summer and saw a bar fight through the former window of the bar, what an education. Try that a 14 these days, it was not just a different era, but the end of an era. Later I went on to spend 40 years as a electrician building all sorts of facilities throughout the Northwest. But that summer and the summers following stuck with me.
I learned the "odd" way. I am a TV Engineer and on one show per year that I work we are near the John Deere test facility. Deere puts on a "play day" that the crew are included in the invitation. They set up 6 excavators of various sizes, 3 dozers of various sizes, 3 wheel loaders of various sizes and an ATD. Each machine has an instructor/operator with it, they give you the basics and if you show any aptitude, tell you to "have fun". As long as there is no line you can stay on the machine as long as you want. They also had 3 mini excavators set up as skills challenges. Pick up a ball off a road cone and drop it in a trash can, pick up a hula-hoop and hang it on a rebar "T" etc. By my 4th visit the instructor/operators on the skills challenges offered to go for coffee and let me run the activity. These visits confirmed something I had known for years, I was in the wrong business. 2 years from retirement I bought an older JD 450C track loader with a back hoe attachment. I would not use the honorific of "operator" yet, "apprentice operator" or "junior operator" maybe. Having a ball and learning. I retire this year and will continue to "play" with my machine on projects around the house and neighborhood. Rick
All good advice.... Nowadays any young person not afraid of dirty, hot, muddy..just plain hard work and is truly interested in heavy equipment will be in demand big time. It might take time, but show up, work hard, show interest in the work/job. Ask questions, be willing to pitch in when you don't have to, "help an old crusty operator shovel tracks" and let it be known what you want to do..operate equipment and chances are you made a freind. Almost a sure thing you will get a chance. It will not be a D-11 or a 500 ton crane right away.. that might take years.. but it will happen. The only way I have ever seen young people get on heavy stuff off the bat is in a boom town mining area.. they will try to make a haul truck driver out of a young person with any farm or woods background. Training or schools sure won't hurt.. anything mechanical.. and yes, get a CDL anyway you can. Trucks will often lead to operating jobs. Anyplace from mines to landfills its the same story. You should try to not only learn to operate, but to understand how the machines work and function and how to fix things. Some of the very best operators start out as laborers... they learn the whole job that way. A hard working young person is worth there weight in gold in the trades nowadays.
It was back in the seventy's, dad said go start the backhoe and wait for me. When he showed up I said now what? He said dig a hole, I asked what did what and he said figger it out. He came back in a bit looked at it and said filler in and bring the loader back to the shop. When I got there he told me "when your operating you get $7 an hour". which was a $2 raise over what I made fixing so I spent any time I could on it. Was an old case 530 gas with next to no breaks, if you had to stop in a hurry you dropped a bucket lol.
It's great to hear about your college experience and early career in heavy equipment and surveying! The job market and wages have certainly evolved over the years. If you have more stories or insights to share from your career or educational journey, feel free to do so. It can be inspiring and informative for others, especially those who might be considering similar paths.
6 year old post, new member, Hmmm, I smell spam...
Yea, think someone wants our stories to train their AI model.
And way back then you left out-a beard, tattoos, sparkly ear stud, and yellow shirt you went to bed in.
I can somewhat pull sticks. After about 2 hours of it my attention span turns to finding something more not boring. Watching my dad and uncle run equipment pretty much killed it for me. I'd much rather fix the stuff then run it
Above spammer at post #27 has been booted, but I couldn't remove their post as it seems two member responded to that post. Again, please don't respond to spammers, report the posts instead so mods can wipe their posts clean.