"Well, it has been a few weeks since I have had a spare moment to put pen to paper. Two subdivisions on the go, including 100 plus metres of 2.5m high retaining walls, have taken it out of me. "However, I was fortunate enough to have a team of awesome operators working hard to get it done, including 82-year-old Terry Wooley, someone I hold in high esteem within the earthmoving industry. With his signature denim overalls, cowboy boots and well-loved Cat hat, Terry had all ears pricked every smoko with his stories, adventures, and advice. This brings me to this next blog post, a small glimpse into my friend Terry’s life, memories and how he keeps himself young (at heart).
"Terry started in the earthmoving industry when he was 18, on the Romney Sewerage Treatment redevelopment with Isaac Construction. He’s worked on some iconic pieces of infrastructure in the McKenzie Country and Central Otago, operating a D9 to help build the Twizel Canals. I sat down with Terry and asked him a few questions.
What is your favourite machine?
"It’s got to be the Caterpillar D8T Bulldozer - yours is the only high track dozer I’ve ever driven, actually. When we were in Twizel, we only had the conventional track; they are so much better and so much easier to clean your tracks out and everything" (laughing).
What jobs are the highlights of your career?
"Probably the Lyttleton roading tunnel in Christchurch in 1960. We had big LeTourneau’s with c pulls and dump trucks on them and little d pulls with scrapers on them, and you could take them off and put the dump bodies on. On this project, a scraper got a flat tire; it had come straight from the factory in America. Upon further investigation, a pair of dentures were found to have chewed through the tube!"
What is the most challenging thing about the industry?
"In the past, the biggest challenge was the surveyor putting in pegs, and you look around, and the scrapers are just running them over as fast as the guy can put them in. We had one guy and that was his favourite trick. Nothing is really a challenge today; how good is it with the GPS and all the automatic controls? It’s taken the skill out of it a bit, but my only concern is if a satellite falls out of the sky, what will we do then?"
"That's when we call you!"
Who is a memorable person you worked with?
"Graham Elise stands out. We worked on jobs together for years at Burnetts on Cat D9G’s. He’s a great operator; I was talking to him the other day; he can drive anything he puts his mind to and makes it hum. He was driving a D10 or D11 for Goughs as a promotional thing when it first came out; they just shifted it there solely to take a photo of it with Mount Cook behind it."
What’s your advice to younger people in the industry?
"Roll your sleeves up, get stuck into it and don’t be frightened to grease your machines, a tube of grease will save thousands of dollars!"
– Olivia
