Like Father, Like Son

We were standing next to his excavator, on a road reclamation field tour on the Helena NF (MT), when I asked Karry Cross if he had completed any road reclamation projects before this one. He replied that he’d been running an excavator since he was eight years old. He quickly realized his mistake and said he meant 18, but then just as quickly returned to the topic of his experience with excavators as a kid. Turns out his dad built national forest roads, and Karry was riding on his dad’s lap in the excavator cab from when he was even younger than eight years old. It’s in his blood.

Perhaps what’s most interesting about this is that Karry isn’t the only excavator operator removing roads that were built by his dad. A day earlier Sue Gunn from Wildlands CPR staff was out on a field tour on the Olympic National Forest in Washington, where excavator operator Dusty Watz told a similar story,  according to the Tacoma News Tribune: “I’m up here decommissioning and maintaining roads my dad built,” noted Dusty Watz, owner of JZ Construction in Union. Watz said the legacy roads program has allowed him to keep eight employees busy who might otherwise be out of work.

Their dads built the roads, and now they’re getting paid to reclaim them. The Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative has received $180 million in funding during the past three years. The jobs created through Legacy Roads are high-quality jobs in the woods, employing many of the same people who used to work on resource extraction. Watz has been able to keep eight people on staff, while Cross’s project will remove more than 20 miles of roads in this project area, while also working in other spots. Cross estimates he can remove up to 2000 feet of road a day, depending on how steep the slope is and how many, if any, culverts need to be removed. This particular site will take about 60 days to complete, and then it’s on to the next site within the project area. He’ll be busy until the snow flies.

Earlier this year the Forest Service began analyzing the jobs impact of the stimulus funds, and determined that for every $1 million spent on road maintenance/upgrades/decommissioning that approximately 12 direct jobs and 12 indirect and induced jobs are created or maintained. That adds up to more than 2100 direct jobs, plus another 2100 jobs sustained throughout the economy supporting or benefitting from this work.

Because road maintenance and reclamation requires heavy equipment like bulldozers and excavators, and because it’s expensive to move such large equipment over long distances, these also tend to be local jobs, going to people who live in rural, resource-dependent communities. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, to meet quite a few people who are literally following in their dads’ excavator tracks. In this modern era, it’s nice to know that perhaps some kids are still learning trades and skills from their parents. But it’s way more than just a skill to be able to reclaim a road. Don’t take my word for it, here’s what Karry had to say to the ABC news reporter:
“It’s nice to be home, reclaiming roads is making it look as natural as you can make it look. You got to have a vision of what it might have looked like 100 years ago and what it’s going to look like 100 years from now, you got to have an eye for beauty.”