Blue Collar Jobs No Longer So Blue

Editor’s note: This article appears in the latest magazine edition of Talk Business Arkansas, which you can read here.

Meet four Arkansans who work in areas that you’ve long considered “blue collar” jobs. However in this day and age and with the rise in technology and innovation, these jobs have progressed far from their physically-demanding pasts.

Talk Business contributor Jeanni Brosius interviews farmer Brandon Bauman, natural gas field tech Sheryl Wade, truck driver Ed Tillman, and auto service manager Lonnie Williams.

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Brandon Bauman, Farmer
Bauman Farms

Brandon Bauman left home to attend the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where he graduated with a degree in business in 1996. Just after graduation, he returned home to Stuttgart to farm 2,600 acres of rice and soybeans in Arkansas County with his father.

“I’m harvesting my seventeenth crop this fall,” Bauman said.

A farmer’s job has drastically changed over the years and now requires nearly as much time managing finances and keeping up with the ever-changing government policies, regulations and programs, as it does planting, irrigating and harvesting.

“Farm labor has become increasingly difficult to obtain, so farmers have had to adjust to farming more acres with fewer employees,” Bauman said. “This is where the combination of new technologies and larger, more efficient equipment have filled that void.”

Some of the technology that has drastically changed in the farming industry is the use of GPS and precision equipment that now steers a tractor and monitors the amount of seed, fertilizer and chemicals.

“During the summer, recyclable poly-tubing is used to irrigate all crops as well,” he said. “This tubing can now be rolled out in a field by one person, eliminating older practices that were less efficient with water usage and more labor intense to manage. The advances in seed technology have also changed our industry. The latest varieties of rice and soybeans have better disease resistance, are more tolerant to droughts, and in some cases even require less fertilizer. Most importantly, they also have a greater yield potential.”

A typical day on the farm for Bauman begins with a meeting, a phone call or a text with his employees to talk about that day’s objectives. It could be planting, irrigating or harvesting.

Bauman also uses technology while driving his tractor to keep up with important information that could affect his farming day.

“I am always keeping an eye on weather conditions and commodity markets using an iPad from the tractor or truck,” he said. “During harvest I can log on to the Riceland Foods website to access daily crop delivery information and local crop prices. They even have a webcam that allows me to monitor the trucks in line from the seat of my tractor.”

In addition to his responsibilities on the farm, Bauman also has served on the Arkansas Rice Council since 2010.

“The Arkansas Rice Council is the promotional arm of the rice industry,” he said. “It is our job to represent our industry in promoting Arkansas rice statewide.”

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Sheryl Wade, Measurement Technician
Southwestern Energy Co.

Sheryl Wade’s typical morning doesn’t begin around a boardroom table. It starts at 6:30 a.m. with a tailgate meeting with her co-workers to decide what was done the night before and what should be done that day.

Wade is a measurement technician at Southwestern Energy Co., and she is the first female to go through the Petroleum Technology Program at University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton and then begin with the company as a roustabout. A Roustabout is the one who is responsible for installing the flow lines from a wellhead to a separator and water tanks. After joining the company in February 2008, she has moved up the ranks to her current position, but she is still only one of two women in the field at the company.

“When I was [attending] UACCM, I was asked to go to an oil and gas trade show in Oklahoma,” Wade said. “I met a lady who was a measurement tech…. I had a real estate and customer service background, so I had worked in a man’s world for 20 years.”

In Wade’s job, technology plays a very important role. She uses a programmer logic computer (PLC) and remote operations controller (ROC) in her day-to-day job.

“We configure the ROC to be an RTU, or remote terminal unit,” Wade said. “This device provides us with access in the field to all the automation on the location. We can see the tubing and casing pressures of the well, the pressures on the separator, the pressures on the produced water tank and the pressure on the pipeline before it goes into our gas gathering system to make its way to market. Another system, the floboss ROC is uses to measure the gas.”

“Our industry is constantly evolving by identifying and implementing new technologies to enhance our operations,” said Christina Fowler, communications specialist at SWN.

After a few years working in the field, Wade now teaches others to do her job at UACCM. She is able to bring the industry prospective to the classroom.

“A former supervisor recommended me for the teaching position,” she said. “I felt very honored, as well as scared, but I took on the challenge. I’ve been teaching since spring 2010, and it has become my passion.”

Wade set the mark that this job can be done by a woman.

“One of my co-workers said to me, ‘You are my equal,’” Wade said, then paused. “I started crying. That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me…. Sometimes we (women) stereotype ourselves more than others do.”

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Ed Tillman, Outside Driver Recruiter
Maverick Transportation

Ed Tillman was working as a forklift driver in a factory when he decided to make a change in his life.

“It kept the bills paid, but I wasn’t going anywhere,” he said about his factory job.

That’s when he decided to attend truck-driving school, and he joined Little Rock based Maverick Transportation LLC as a driver seven years ago. During that time, he was awarded Maverick’s Driver-of-the-Year award in 2010. Tillman has recently left the road to become a recruiter for the company.

“I get to visit the next generation of truck drivers,” he said.

That next generation of drivers will learn a very different side of truck driving than Ed learned when he first went on the road.

“It’s changed by leaps and bounds,” Tillman said. “The driving industry is growing, and the technology has advanced over the last six years…. We’ve gone from paper logs to where it’s all tracked electronically now. Everybody is on the same page.”

Not only does new technology make the job a bit easier, it also makes it safer for the truck driver and for all the other vehicles on the road.

“We also have roll stability in our trucks,” he said. “An accident takes a moment to happen.”

Maverick’s new Freightliner Cascadias are equipped with electronic onboard recorders, auxiliary power units, and the latest in safety technology, including collision avoidance, and roll stability control.

“It’s reduced our rear-end collisions phenomenally, and that protects other drivers,” Tillman added.

Another way Maverick truck drivers are using technology on their daily jobs is through their satellite laptops that they have with them in their trucks. A driver could access a training video or message his fleet manager at any time.

“If a driver is out in West Virginia, he can pull up a video to refresh himself on how to secure a load,” Tillman said. “When a trucker gets into the same old routing for say delivering lumber, then he gets a load of steel bar, and he’s never handled steel bar, there are some subtleties that might be different.”

Tillman said that these videos refresh the driver on how to stabilize the steel that may be different than lumber. Although the driver has been trained on that particular aspect, because he’s never done it, or it’s been a while, the video is a refresher course, or a “cheat sheet.”

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Lonnie Williams, Service Manager
Riverside Acura and Subaru

Car keys aren’t simply car keys anymore. Many of them don’t even look like keys, and some cars don’t require a key; they start with the push of a button.

Technology has changed drastically in the automotive industry. When Lonnie Williams began his career as an automotive technician in 1967, cars were much simpler. Now, as service manager at Little Rock-based Riverside Subaru and Acura, Williams said it’s no longer a matter of changing points and spark plugs.

Williams and senior automotive technician Jon Jester roll a stand that holds a computer over to a Subaru that a customer brought into the shop. As Jester plugs the computer into the slot underneath the dash of the car, he hoped the computer would tell him everything that is going on with the car.

“A lot of times cars are fixed without raising the hood,” Williams said.

When the computer diagnoses the problem, a technician knows exactly where the problem is.

“Cars are getting more and more reliable,” Jester said. “You just bring it in for an oil change and to rotate your tires.”

Jester said he began working as an automotive technician in 1995, and things have changed a lot since then. He said most newer model cars don’t have dipsticks to check fluids; it’s all monitored electronically. Also, he said there are no gauges on the dash of newer cars; there are just indicator lights.

“The same thing that‘s happening to cell phones is happening to cars,” Williams said about the technology that seems to change daily.

But even with all the modern technology, Jester and Williams agree that batteries are still the weakest link in a car. He added that hybrid models have three batteries.

“But every day, there’s something different,” Jester said with a laugh. “Somebody figures out a new way to tear up a car.”

Not only have the cars changed, but the way automotive technicians are trained has also changed. Because of the constantly changing technology, technicians are required to attend more training classes.

“When I first started, an hour of labor cost $12, and the tech was paid half,’ Williams said. “Now, it’s $100 an hour, and the tech has constant training.”

Testing equipment is also expensive, Williams said, a battery tester costs around $13,000.

“There’s also the tool investment [for technicians],” Jester said. “We supply our tools and our tool boxes.”

Williams said most of the technicians he hires have been to a trade school, but he will hire someone who hasn’t been to school and start them out on small jobs so they have hands-on training.