Faces of the Diversion: D.J. Gunville

D.J. Gunville: [00:00:14] Hi, I’m D.J. Gunville. I’m with ASN Constructors, one of the foremen on the channel side.

[00:00:21] We start out the day having a safety meeting, usually takes anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes. Once we’re done with that we go to our equipment, make sure everybody’s got their proper PPE on, get everybody situated on what we’re going to start with in the day. Get the excavator set up, trucks going to a certain area… we usually show them where they’re going. Everybody checks their oil and fluids and looks for damages to start a shift, and then we go out and start moving dirt.

[00:01:02] On the end of our shift we do crossover with the next crew coming on. So we’ll pick them up, take them and show them what we got going on and they take off from there.

[00:01:18] In the wintertime is usually the best time to get a lot of production done. We got frozen ground, frost… so that makes it so trucks ain’t getting stuck, our equipment, dozers ain’t getting stuck. Last winter was really, really harsh ’cause it was warm, it was cold, so we were shut down a lot last winter.

[00:01:44] When I started for ASN I started out as an operator. I actually got hired as an operator, did like two hours of training in the haul truck just to know the area, then I got put on a dozer, ran dozer, and then once the Cat scrapers came then I ran Cat scraper. That’s pretty much what I got hired for was Cat scraper.

[00:02:11] And then I got moved into a foreman. I actually was joking around in our safety meeting ’cause we were short one of the supervisors and I told him I’d fill in for the day and get in a white pickup, and ever since then I’ve been in a white pickup.

[00:02:32] One thing I like most about the job is getting to meet different people and making sure that they’re getting home safe to their families.