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"Right now the hunt is on," says Derby. "I'm looking for those journeymen mechanics with 15 to 20 years' experience.
Because of that experience, they may have had three or four jobs over that career, where they've been exposed to electrical work, they know how to run 110 or 220 or swap out a motor, because that's a big part of the job, too, as well as the welding and the fabricating."
OLD SCHOOL VS. NEW SCHOOL
In an earlier job as service manager for a Peterbilt dealer, Derby needed technicians who were up to date on the latest technology. "I wanted that ASE certified technician," he says. "If you don't know how to plug in this lap top into a C15 Cat and extract the data and figure out the problem, then what are you doing here?"
At Advanced Waste Services, however, Derby is in an entirely different world, and he's looking for an entirely different kind of technician.
The century-old brick building that the company occupies is filled with dozens of gigantic holding tanks, miles of plumbing, dozens of pumps and motors, and a dizzying assortment of waste-treatment equipment, and the vehicle technicians have to keep all of that hardware working, as well. There's nary a computer in sight, and even in the new, expanded maintenance bay that Derby is developing for the company, the technicians will be noticeably computer-less.
"A lot of heavy duty truck technicians who have been doing it for years and years and years are plugging into computers now and getting away from the good old-fashioned mechanics," he says. "They need that mechanical aptitude to solve problems and come up with solutions on the run.
"What we're looking for," he concludes, "is those mechanics who can work with their hands, who know hydraulics, those guys who have the cognitive skills to look at a problem and say, ‘Here's the solution,' and be able to cut, fabricate, weld, replace parts, make repairs, whatever they have to do to fix it."
