My first outing as a part of Vermeer was a trip to Louisville last week, to take in the National Farm Machinery Show. I rode with five other engineers for the nine hour drive. We stopped in Indianapolis to tour Rexnord, a primary bearing supplier to Vermeer. Louisville has the largest UPS sorting facility in the world, so we toured that as well. The action starts there at about 11pm, so that's when the tours are. We were lucky enough to also get to try out their flight simulators. To give you an idea of how realistic they are, UPS pilots never touch a real plane during their training, and are completely ready for action when they are done with the several-month training. Granted, UPS only hires veteran pilots, but these trainers are exactly like the real thing. This tour took us around the 5.2 million square foot (120 acres under one roof!) facility. All sorting is automated, and most packages go from plane to plane in less than twenty minutes. Very impressive. This was very late on Valentines day, and someone noticed that there were many upset wives and girlfriends out there: about every tenth package was from Pro Flowers.
Sales and marketing people manned Vermeer's booth at the show, and the engineers were there to walk the show and look at the competition's technology up close. The NFMS is the biggest of its kind in the country. It's possible to see everything in one day, but I was a little stunned by everything and really just glazed over everything the first day. I dug deeper into the forage equipment the next day with a product guy and an enhancement engineer, who together gave me deep insight into details about Vermeer and the competition that I wouldn't have gotten by myself or from just looking at the equipment.
Aside from all I learned about equipment, this was a very good chance to get to know some of my coworkers. I'm looking forward to more travel.
2/11/12
Moving to Iowa
I mentioned to a few people that I may put a blog post or two up about my relocation to Pella, Iowa after being taken on by Vermeer. It's a little overdue as I've been out of Montana for almost two weeks, but here it is, and after the first week of work, it's looking like I may have plenty to write about soon.
My final week in Montana was a great one, and I'd like to thank everyone who was part of it, including my last Riley's session, birthday festivities, and the awesome get-together we had at my parents' house. It's tough to leave such fun and supportive friends and family! I'd love to stay in touch with any and all, so if you don't have my email or phone number, get in touch through my parents.
I'd like to note that I'm writing this on the anniversary of the day that didn't exist for Larry Lee and I last year; we left for Australia on February 10 and didn't get there until the 12th due to crossing the international date line. An awful lot can develop in a year huh?
The drive out to Pella took me a couple days. I went the long way, through North Dakota to Minneapolis, instead of through South Dakota. I did this so I could visit with high school friend Rachelle Rauser in Bismarck. Somehow it was only a 1390 mile drive, not many more than the other route. The weather and roads were fine the entire way, except for some fog in North Dakota and Minnesota, and the only real complaint was the traffic in Minneapolis.
It was a huge relief to have a place to live sorted before I left. I was lined up with another Vermeer engineer who needed a roommate through the manager of the apartment complex when I was looking around for places in January. It's a perfect setup because I don't have much furniture and he's already got the place furnished. It'd have been hard to live by myself in a new town anyway. Tyler's from west of Des Moines and has worked for Vermeer on directional drills since August, so he's pretty new to Pella also.
Officially, I am a design engineer in the forage equipment department at Vermeer Corporation. I'm in the mower "group", which is a group of two engineers for now. My first week at work was pretty gentle. Typical, expected orientation activities occurred on Monday. The only surprise that day was when my manager offered me a trip to Louisville, Kentucky this coming week to attend the National Farm Machinery Show with several other Vermeer ag engineers. We're driving there, and will stop in Indianapolis at Linkbelt, one of Vermeer's vendors, and at the UPS Worldport sorting facility, the biggest in the US. After getting situated into a cubicle of my very own, I designed my first couple mower parts. I was also offered two other opportunities to travel, the first being a two-week mower service trip through Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, and North Carolina at the end of March, the second being a mower test trip to Florida in early March. I'll be as far from Pella as Helena on that trip, but in the opposite direction. It'll also mean I've driven from the Pacific to the Atlantic in the last nine months. I don't have much keeping me in Pella, so I snapped up the offers. I'll be out of the office four of my first nine weeks at Vermeer. Extensive travel will be likely, especially during the summer, and Vermeer uses a Dutch-made cutterbar in all their mowers, so regular trips to the Netherlands are necessary.
I've gotten out a little bit in Pella, but don't know the town much yet, nor do I know many people yet. Most of my coworkers are farmers and all of them are from the Midwest, and consider Montana to be the extreme Northwest. Two are Nebraska cowboys, and they've promised to get me on some broncs. The ag engineering department is a young group, with all the engineers being under 40. I find it very interesting that the other mower guy and myself are the only bachelors in the whole lot of close to twenty engineers. I've experienced a very respectful and friendly work environment thus far in the office, in the shop, and on the production floor. I've probably met more than forty people in the last week, and almost every single person already knew who I was, where I was from, and that my dad is a dealer. This last detail has gotten me some high regard. It's been fun to run into and re-meet people who had been out to Montana and met my dad at service and sales schools or who had even been out to the ranch.
Check back to read up on my forthcoming adventures and on how I'm getting along in Pella when I haven't been shipped elsewhere. This gig could get interesting.
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