Mike Langeluttig frequently fixes air conditioning systems in Maine during the winter, got his education as a mechanic at University of Hard Knocks, and considers it a good day when he gets to work alone on logging - equipment far out in the woods. “Unique” “independent” not only describe his business model, but his approach to life.
The 40-year-old is the owner and sole employee of MSL Mechanical, a mobile equipment repair business in Burnham, Maine. He tinkered with ATVs, snowmobiles and old pickup trucks from an early age, took diesel training while in high school, and continued his mechanical self-education while he worked as a professional hunting and fishing guide through his 20s.
“Guiding was great, but as I got older I realized I needed a year-round job,” Langeluttig says. “I had a lot of my own tools and I knew my way around machinery, so I got a job working on trucks at a dealership.”
An opportunity to work in the oil fields in 2013 led him to Texas where he worked from a service truck, and discovered he enjoyed working in the field. When family obligations moved him back to Maine two years later, he took a job working in the shop for a Volvo construction equipment dealership. Six months later he was back in the field working from one of their service trucks.
“I got along good in the shop, but I’m happier when I’m out on my own,” he says. “I like a challenge. I don’t like to go to the same place to do the same thing every day. I like a little of everything but not a lot of any one thing.”
Two years ago Langeluttig took his independence a step further and started MSL Mechanical. He credits his wife Tina with not only handling the bookwork side of the business, but for her whole-hearted support. The only thing she asked when he went independent was that, “I sign up with a uniform cleaning service so my dirty clothes wouldn’t wreck our washing machine.”
Langeluttig works from a 2008 Kenworth T300 wired by a Paccar PX8 with an Eaton six-speed manual transmission.
“I ran a Kenworth service truck when I worked the Volvo dealership, and really like them,” says. “This one has a 14-foot-long IMT Dominator service body on it with an IMT 6025 10,000-pound-capacity telescoping crane. I bought the truck used. It came pretty well set up for what I do, but there’s always things you can do to make a truck better.”
The truck is equipped with a Miller Bobcat 260 welder/generator and a hydraulically powered Iowa Mold Tooling air compressor that feeds a 30-gallon IMT air tank mounted between the frame rails. Ball bearing roller drawers in the front, left side compartment carry his most-used tools. In an open space above the drawer set is mounted a fan and heater plumbed into the engine’s cooling system.
“Once the engine is up to operating tempera- e I can have warm tools,” he says. “That’s nice the middle of a Maine winter.”
Ironically, Langeluttig frequently uses those warmed tools to repair air conditioning systems in midwinter.
“A lot of the logging machines have cabs with lots of glass, sitting on top of hydraulic lines and tanks that get pretty hot,” he says. “On sunny days in midwinter it actually gets toasty in those cabs, so I have pretty steady work fixing air conditioning all through the winter.”
Langeluttig enjoys the satisfaction of diagnosing and repairing broken machinery, but says the biggest perks of being self-employed are the independence and the environs in which he works.
“My favorite thing about my job isn’t what I do as much as where I do it. Give me a machine broke down way back in the woods where I can work alone to figure out what’s wrong and what need to do to fix it — that’s a job I can look for- ward to.”
Langeluttig is satisfied with his service truck, always has his eyes on new tools and accessories.
“I want to add some more work lights,” he says, and I’m going to get one of those tools you hook up to a carbon dioxide bottle so you can make dry ice in the field and shrink bushings. I’m also going to put an inverter in the front left side compartment so I can keep all my battery-powered tools charged. There are always gadgets that can make it easier or faster to repair things.”