West's Specialty Excavating was started just after I was born in the mid 80's.  At the age of 3, dad would put an excavator on our large sandbox and taught me how to operate it, allowing me to operate on my own while he watched.  From there I was taught to fall trees, operate logging skidders, dozers, tractors, skid steers and any other piece of equipment we had on the job.  By the age of 12, I was put on payroll, and worked full time in the summers.  When I was 15, we were logging near the canadian border.  We were burning brush piles, and it was abnormally dry that year.  While I was at school, I was called to the office for a phone call.  It was my mom saying dad was in a bad accident on the job and they were in the ambulance going to the hospital.  The fires had started spreading, and dad had been pinched between the skidder tires and thrown over 100 feet down the hill as the skidder rolled the first time.  I was excused from school, picked up my little brother, and raced to the job to get the fires under control.  We turned the skidder back onto its tires with the excavator, and got it running (it was equipped with a fire tank and hose reel), constructed fire lines, and put out the fires over a large amount of acreage. I continued the logging operation, operating the new state-of-the-art mechanized logging equipment we had just purchased (the first mechanized logging equipment to be sold in the country!)

 

By my late teens, I had more experience on equipment than guys in their 30's.  I learned forestry health from a very young age, allowing me decades to see the effect of forest practices on our own jobs years later, what works and what doesn't.  Fire fuels reduction work has always been a service we've provided, and Dad was always on forest fires growing up, with the only thing changing is the equipment, and changing from piling and burning to mulching in place.  Before graduating high school and leaving for the military, I was working full time after school logging on the night shift by myself.  After the military, I returned home, and returned to the family business, eager to expand our services.  We continually added equipment, adding diversity and capability, learning new skills, and learning from the experts to become experts ourselves.  I was raised with the highest expectations in the work we did, to make our work stand high above the rest.  Dad found his niche in doing the things others would not do, or were afraid to do, and did it very well.  That was always instilled in me, and to this day I always make sure we go above and beyond what others would do.  To stand apart from the competition has kept our company at a level that has survived some very difficult hardships, that many others were not able to.  At age 40, I am still expanding my knowledge, experience, and looking for new or innovative ways to improve everything we do.  New ideas or ways of doing things does not translate into the best way of doing things.  Sometimes the old ways are the best, and the most economical for us and our customers.

 

I am the 5th generation here in Bonners Ferry, with most of the 6th generation raised and out of the house and raising our 7th generation.  With 6 kids, and now 10 grandkids, I should have a good supply of the next generation to train just as I was, to maybe continue this business for many more decades to come!