My uncle owns a Construction Company and my dad and brother work for him. I get to use some equipment but not very often since I'm not 18 yet.

 

ive "borrowed" county equipment to "help" them get ahead after a few to many . i really think i have a knack for it too

brett

 

Cool, good to see the younger crowd involved in pulling levers.

I'm 29, not old by any stretch, but it's still good to see people under 18 getting involved.

My dad always told me if you can drive truck, pull levers, and turn a wrench, you'll NEVER be out of a job. Fortunately I can do all three pretty well, and get paid for all three at the moment. :hyper:

 

thats me

 

i totally agree. My neighbor was running a 13 stick blade at the age of 15.

His boy, who is 3 1/2, will be running something before he's 11. You can already see that. He knows how to start the dumptruck already. Thank god he cant disengage the airbrakes yet. A little too tough. But it is a new season........

97% of my friends up here are operators. But I think it comes with the area. I wish I was able to jump in any piece of heavy equipment have it be second nature like them. Pretty neat.......

 

I spent some years in a civil engineer unit in the army, had to be cross trained on all the equipment so we all got to play on everything. Built alot of roads through the mountains in Honduras and Panama.

 

I put about 150 hrs on a JD 450 dozer, 80 hrs on a Komatsu D21 dozer, 40 hrs on a JD backhoe with extenda boom all doing excavation on my own 5 acre property. Have since purchased my own Mitsubishi BD2E dozer (put 45hrs on it) It's now for sale since were selling the property.
Have also ran Bobcat, ride on trencher, small (27hp) JD tractor with front end loader and the neighbors Mitsubishi M70 excavator some (16,000#). I love running equipment.

 

Its all like second nature to me. I grew up on the farm running on my own since the age of 9 or so (100 acre field with dad just across the way, so pretty much direct supervision) and now I run a forklift in a steel mill moving finished coils. I use the term forklift loosely cause the boom is rated to 80,000lbs and its got a single ram instead of forks. Its a good job but I wish I was back at my old company sometimes, running haul trucks, Dozers (been up to a D7R, but john deere 850's mostly) loaders, excavators, the whole nine yards.

 

I run a couple different front end loaders at the sawmill, A Volvo/Michigan, and 2 Komatsu's. Have also run a Clark log skidder a few times too.

 

yea i work for a company when im not in school and ive run a scraper to a loader which is what im running now. all of them CATS. grew up around then my dad been runing them all his life. when i get out of highschool i plan on being a operator. but until thne i just runin them part time durin the summer.