Candidate 1

Candidate 1

This candidate is a 39-yr old Journeyman Operating Engineer, holding a J-card for 17 years, with broad experience managing crews, overseeing jobsites in the Midwest and elsewhere in the US, and whose skillset includes both utility work, pipeline installation and earthwork. 

He has earned every available certification offered by the International Operating Engineers School, of the IOUE, along with multiple OSHA, CIPP, NGA and 49CFR 192 certifications. His experience with a broad range of work crews and individuals has earned him valuable experience as a seasoned manager, even though he is fairly young.  He has worked with union and non-union companies.

He is an impressive fellow, who, like many “farm kids” grew up working hard, with a state athlete’s determination and can-do attitude.  He is highly likeable, and has a personal story of achievement in spite of obstacles. I explored this, by investigating his early background, and two particular stories are telling: 

 

Eventually though, he opted to continue the outdoor work he loved, moving from a high school blacktopping business to full time work for a major gas contractor. He signed up to the union, and in the low season started training at the Operators school in Crosby, TX, earning his Class A Journeyman card with 2,500 working hours.  This is where he earned his first DOT 49 CFR qualifications.

He expanded his skills at the Bakken project, which offered year around work. He was able to focus on large pipe installations, learning compression sites and station work, and gained experience with cathodic protection. He estimates that since starting the Bakken, about 75% of his work has been on pipeline and mechanical projects, with the balance being excavation work. He has worked with low pressure and high pressure pipe, up to 40-inch, 400 PSI main distribution lines.

While on a 2-and-a-half-month break from the Bakken, wanting to stay busy, he signed up with Mortenson on the Vikings stadium. Here he did utility locates, relocations around the stadium site, and worked with a team of operators to impact some 200 adjacent customer installations.  This experience allowed him to work successfully with a variety of regulatory inspectors, and other contractors, and the Mortenson hierarchy. 

His resume shows several companies, but as these projects all stopped and started depending on weather and the job plan, he kept busy by switching back and forth where other workers may have taken months off at a time.  Our candidate was routinely requested to return to previous projects first as a foreman and then supervisor, and returned again and again to serve previous companies. He worked more recently on the FoxConn project. For his contractor he managed a crew of seven directly, on a section of 37 miles of pipe, in lengths of 60 feet and requiring 1,600 connections. While at there he was the company representative in handling some very difficult customer situations, where newly-built homes were to be torn down in eminent domain proceedings, working directly with those homeowners, inspecting, and making sure everything was safe to proceed.  At times he had to bring in law enforcement to enforce the move-out orders. The site itself had a water table at times 2.5 feet below grade, which led to water issues during the entire project.  His teams installed new drain tile and ditchways, and the pipes they laid were poly, not steel.  Here he became an expert at GPS Trimble. 

His most recent project was 319 miles of pipeline. He worked daily with NDT state inspectors after each connection, meeting the strict requirements of SHA P21 recoating protection. Our candidate was the interface between all inspectors, and he managed up to six connections per day, and all necessary pressure tests and re-grading plans.  During this time he took over as director for HSE, handling all morning safety meetings, daily job briefings and filing of data sheets. 

I was most impressed in how he responded to difficulties in his life, and how he responded to challenges as opportunities to grow, and not roadblocks.  This is a very likeable fellow, with a work ethic that make him seem to be from an earlier generation. 

Rationale for making a job change – His work life, up until now, has kept him away from home for weeks at a time, and he is now motivated to join a company where he can work year-around in a more consistent and full-time role. Rather than bumping from company to company he wants to set down roots with a single company. 

Our candidate grew up in Western Wisconsin, and now lives near La Crosse. His fiancée is an RN. He confided in me that she may be “in a family way”, which is the number one reason he seeks a new position. In his spare time he enjoys all manner of outdoor sports, hunting and fishing. He has been a wrestling coach, and has a side job for a few hours per month marketing the syrup produced by his family farm. 

His high-side earnings, depending on the year, are in the range of $160k. 

Would you like to discuss this candidate? He is open to relocation in the Midwest. Please contact Tom Jackson, at Ideabuilder Search, at (612) 474-4343 to ask about Candidate #1.