Template For Field Techs

Not every mechanic has the potential to be a stellar field tech. Many mechanics who excel in a shop struggle when assigned to a service truck, while some mechanics who underachieve working 8-to-5 under florescent lights suddenly bloom into cash-generating marvels when they’re unleashed to work without walls.

The challenge for service managers is to learn to identify the type of mechanic who flourishes “in the wild.”

“A full-time shop mechanic and a full-time field mechanic are two separate individuals,” says Jason Van Pelt, with Mechanics Hub, formerly Maizis and Miller Recruitment Specialists based in Toronto, Canada. “That doesn’t mean one type of mechanic is better than another. The jobs just require different personalities.”

Shop mechanics operate in a relatively protected environment. Service managers and service writers isolate most shop techs from dealing with customers. Special tools are available, parts are only steps away at the parts counter, and it never rains or snows on the machines they’re working on, even in the back shop.

Being your own manager

Field techs, on the other hand, have to be their own service manager, parts person, and sometimes even salesman as well as mechanic. They must be personable enough to deal one-on-one with sometimes clueless machine operators to diagnose what a machine is or isn’t doing properly. They must have verbal skills to explain repairs, and the costs of repairs, to machine owners.

Once they’re finished dealing with people, they must be top-rank mechanics able to work under sometimes miserable weather conditions in remote locations to make repairs on-par with what a shop-based tech could do under a roof and on a concrete floor. Then they have to go home and explain to their spouse why it was more important to fix a greasy backhoe rather than attend their daughter’s final soccer game of the season.

There is no template for identifying superstar field mechanics. But there are personalities, behaviors and patterns that seem to be common among successful “free-range” mechanics:

Physical size. Many successful field techs are big guys, and for good reason.

“I’m around 6-foot, 2-inches tall and 220 pounds, and it’s still hard on my body, working with big machinery and big tools,” says Randy Bostic, an independent service tech based in St. Clairsville, Ohio. “I wouldn’t want to be any smaller.”

But there are a fair number of greyhound mechanics who excel at field repairs, helped by their smaller build that allows them to wriggle into small confines in big machines. Industry-wise, there seems to be an intuitive tendency for really big guys to gravitate toward working on D-8 Cats and other large-frame equipment, while smaller guys find success making field repairs to skid steers and smaller equipment.

It’s all about personality

Personality, part 1. Great field techs were often either excellent students in school — or nightmares for their teachers. It takes creative intelligence to work on-the-fly, especially with the explosion of electronic technology in modern heavy equipment. But never overlook the kid who couldn’t sit still in class, who was vibrating out of his seat with excess energy. More than a few hyper-active kids who learned to channel their energy into machinery repairs have excelled as field service mechanics. 

Bostic, who was a top-percentile student in high school and college classes, admits he is “intense.”

“I’ve been told I’m a scary guy to work around,” Bostic says. “I’m always pushing, always moving. I rarely eat lunch or take breaks, unless you count taking a swig of water from a jug. Very few guys like working with me. Not because I’m grumpy, but because once my feet hit the ground on a jobsite, I don’t stop till it’s fixed.”

Personality, part 2. “A good field service tech has to be a people person,” says Van Pelt. “It’s the little things — eye contact, shaking hands, being able to communicate easily—that lubricate the dialogue in trying to diagnose problems, explain options and working through the repairs. (Field techs) are the face of your company when they’re in the field. There are great mechanics in the shop who are geniuses with machines, but who aren’t comfortable talking with customers. A good field tech has to be as good with people as he is with machines.”

Personality, part 3. Remarkable memories and uncanny perception are common among successful field mechanics. Bostic can easily recite the contents of every drawer of every toolbox on his mammoth service truck, as well as the part numbers and location of many of the spare parts he has crammed into cabinets on his truck. Jeff Sparks, a dealership mechanic based in Perry, Iowa, can recite intricate details of repairs made one time 10 years ago on a machine he never saw again.

Experience has its advantages

Tom Veronesi, an independent field tech in Bristol, Conn., says, “Machinery just makes sense to me. Even if I’ve never worked on a particular machine before, I open ’em up, kind of look ’em over, and all of a sudden I understand how it all works. I can’t explain it — it’s crazy.”

Age. There are young techs fresh out of tech school who do well working in the field. But most mechanics admit it takes time to develop experience that leads to efficiency. 

“It takes time to learn to read between the lines of tech manuals,” Veronesi says. “Young guys, all they can do is follow the book, step by step, but us old guys sometimes have run into things before. You get a feeling, a hunch, and you run with it.

“I had a job last year where a young factory mechanic spent two days replacing computers and connectors and all sorts of stuff,” Veronesi continues. “He had all the wiring ripped out trying to follow the diagnostics on his laptop. The owner eventually got tired and called me. I messed with it for a few minutes, traced some wires, found a blown fuse. Machine started, but I had the experience and knew enough to keep looking for what blew that fuse.

“While I was reinstalling the harnesses (the other mechanic) had torn out, I noticed a spot where the harness protector had rubbed through, shorted the wire and blown the fuse. I was in and out in an hour and 40 minutes. That’s the kind of stuff you only learn with experience.”

You get what you pay for

Compensation. Combine the unique personalities of top-notch service techs with the demands of customers for their services, and you’d better budget to pay top wages and make accommodations to earn their services. Jeff Clark of Riverside, Calif., now runs his own independent repair service after leaving dealership work so he could spend more time with his family.

“(Dealership demands) got to the point where it was more than my family could handle,” says Clark. “The hours were unreal because they had the work to do and it was hard for me to turn down helping the customers. I figured out I had enough customers so I could go out on my own, and never looked back. Now, I may work 60 hours one week, then take a four-day weekend the next week to be with my family. I had to go independent for the sake of my family.”

For Eric Anthony, running his own service truck is more profitable than working at a dealership. He started his 38-year career as a mechanic with dealership work in Tacoma, Wash. Circumstances eventually led him to move to Idaho, where lower pay rates encouraged him to start Horse Canyon Services, his one-man mobile repair service.

“Because of the local economy I was going to have to take a serious pay cut if I went to work at a dealership, so I went independent,” Anthony says. “I work on trucks, heavy equipment and farm equipment. I started out charging $48 an hour, and now that I’ve got my reputation established I’m charging $80 an hour, and I’m busier than I want to be.”

Which ties back in with the personality aspects of the profile of mechanics who excel at working in the field. Good ones are driven, take pride in their work, and have exceptional cognitive skills that may or may not show up on conventional skill tests. They are independent, often ornery, usually stubborn and famous for being a challenge to manage. 

As one service manager muttered after trying to “manage” one of his premier service truck techs over the phone: “I’d kill him, but then I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

Dan Anderson is a part-time freelance writer and full-time heavy equipment mechanic based in Bouton, Iowa.