NEWS

Snow Rodeo tests public works skills

Jenn Rowell
jrowell@greatfallstribune.com
Volunteer judge Larry Chapman, who is the Lewis and Clark County assistant operations superintendent, keeps time during the road grader competition at the 26th Annual Snow Rodeo on Thursday morning at Montana ExpoPark.

It might look like anyone could hop into heavy equipment and plow a street or pave a road, but public works operators say it takes a high level of skill that can only be acquired over time.

Operators from across Montana were in Great Falls this week training and showing off those skills.

The 26th Annual Snow Rodeo was at the Montana ExpoPark with a day of training and a day of competition in four events: snowplow, front-end loader, backhoe and motor grader. The rodeo is divided into three phases of competition: a written test, walk-around diagnostic and rodeo. Scores are given for each phase, and the contestant with the highest number of total points wins.

Winners take home bragging rights.

“It’s educational and kind of entertaining,” Clint Walker said of the rodeo. He’s with Missoula County public works and has won a number of events in recent years.

But he’s modest about it.

“I did all right the last two years,” he said.

The operators are used to working on their own, in the dark or with no one watching, so having a crowd during the rodeo is added pressure, said Jerry Jochinsen, with Missoula County public works.

He’s been with public works for eight years and this was his third Snow Rodeo.

The Missoula County team competes in all of the events.

“We do it all,” he said.

The event is a chance to network with other people in the state who do the same work, Jochinsen said.

“We can learn a lot by other counties, how they take care of their roads and handle things,” he said. “Everybody has little tricks, and those tricks add up.”

It’s also a chance to break from normal operations to focus on training, Walker said.

“They always do stuff that really related to us every year,” he said.

A backhoe operator completes a timed run involving several tasks using the bucket as judges look on during the 26th Annual Snow Rodeo on Thursday morning at Montana ExpoPark.

The operators do different tasks during the summer and may use some of the same equipment, but with different attachments for different purposes.

“It’s fun, but it’s supposed to prepare them for the winter months,” said Debbie Kimball, with Great Falls public works and one of the event organizers.

Steve Jenkins is the director of the Local Technical Assistance Program at Montana State University.

The national LTAP’s mission is to “foster a safe, efficient, environmentally sound transportation system by improving skills and knowledge of local transportation providers through training, technical assistance and technology transfer.”

Montana has more than 70,000 miles of roads in cities, counties and highway districts and Montana LTAP’s focus is on assisting state and county road offices and city street departments in road and bridge maintenance and repair, according to its website. It provides worker safety training courses such as flagger certification, traffic control supervisor certification and forklift certification.

Jenkins said that in designing training for the annual rodeo, they listen to local agencies, which all have advisory boards, and they tell LTAP what they need.

This year focused on forklift certification, safe equipment operations, material and stockpile estimation, and some basic surveying.

They partner with equipment suppliers like John Deere and Caterpillar, who provide training on telematics and accugrade, which are instruments in the equipment that make measurements more accurate.

“It’s a real high degree of technical training for these guys,” Jenkins said.

The rodeo is often held in Great Falls, where it was founded, but has expanded to a rotation between the city, Helena and Billings.

“The city is always looking for new ways to improve their training and to improve their service to the city of Great Falls,” Jenkins said.

There are requirements for the jobs, such as a commercial driver’s license and certifications, but mostly, it just takes time, he said.

“It becomes really evident in the competition how much time they have on the equipment,” he said

It’s a chance for cities, counties and the Montana Department of Transportation to come together and share best practices and network since their systems are together in the state transportation network.

The event is sponsored by the city of Great Falls, LTAP, American Public Works Association, MDT, Tractor and Equipment Co. and RDO Equipment.

Competitors in the 26th Annual Snow Rodeo watch the backhoe event as they wait for their turn to compete Thursday morning at Montana ExpoPark.

Jenkins started in Great Falls and has been involved with the rodeo for 22 years.

Estimating material stockpiles is important, Jenkins said, because public works departments need to know what they have and “also making sure that public dollars go as far as they can. When we buy materials, we need to know that we’re getting what we paid for.”

It also takes intricate calculations to figure how much material is needed for different types of projects, he said.

“You really have to know your math and materials to get it right,” he said.

One of the rodeo challenges involved knocking orange blocks off cones, moving from side to side and passing over uneven ground.

Jenkins said people think they can just jump in a figure it out, but it takes a lot of skill and experience.

“These guys are pretty humble about what they do,” Jenkins said.

Having the more experienced operators spend time with younger and less experienced operators can also help pass on those skills.

Kimball said she read a recent Tribune article about baby boomers retiring and noted that there aren’t many people who want to do the manual work anymore.

“We’re finding that out,” she said of the public works field.

Online

To learn more about LTAP, go to http://bit.ly/1XmHZcS.