A technician from Los Lunas, N.M., who operates a service truck he calls “White Lightning,” is the private-sector Technician of the Year for 2017, the Association of Equipment Management Professionals announced recently.
Lee Manzanares, a lead technician in Albuquerque for RMCI Inc., a general contractor specializing in waste water and flood control projects, received the award at the association’s 35th management conference and annual meeting in Las Vegas, said a news release from the association.
In his field work, which includes repairing and maintaining cranes and excavators, Manzaneres uses a company-owned Ford F-650 with a Summit body and five-ton crane, he told Service Truck Magazine.
“Whatever breaks in the field, I fix,” he was quoted in the news release.
A veteran of the First Gulf War, Manazanares served with the Howitzer Battery Red Legs 2nd Armored Calvary Regiment during Desert Storm, where he learned how to work under pressure. That included a battlefield repair of a tank in which he spliced a rubber fuel line with a steel one and insulated it with an asbestos glove. It was for that kind of valient effort that his unit won three bronze stars on their service ribbons, noted an article on the AEMP website.
His heavy equipment service and management career spans 28 years, the last nine with RMCI Inc.
“I have never heard the word quit come out of his mouth,” said his supervisor, Mike Pierce, RMCI’s vice-president of equipment. “Lee is the perfect example of ‘the one who always gets it done.’”
The AEMP’s public sector Technician of the Year award went to Bruce Satterwhite of the Virginia Department of Transportation.
“He recently invented an auger repair lift that positions and stabilizes the work tool at the proper height and angle while worn blades are cut off and new blades are welded on,” the AEMP news release noted.