Dozer Day 2017: Future Workers Dig-in

May 25, 2017

If the crowds were anything to go by, construction in Oregon and Southwest Washington might not be faced with a shortage of workers for much longer.

Thousands of people turned out last Saturday and Sunday at the Clark County Fairgrounds, just north of Vancouver, Washington, to play on backhoes, cranes, excavators and garbage trucks, at the annual Dozer Day celebration.

The fairgrounds were swarmed with families with small children. Many were preschool age. They were climbing on old tires, sitting in the cabs of heavy machinery, and playing sideshow games.

With the hypersensitivity to safety in construction today, many children rarely get near a beeping truck or excavator. However, this weekend was given over to letting them see and do. Families lined up by the dozen for a two-minute turn on a mini Bobcat or John Deere, or to sit in the lap of a machine operator. Dozer Day is now in its 13th year, and its tenth year being organized by the Nutter Family Foundation, the charitable arm of the heavy civil contractor Nutter Corporation.

Continue reading at the Portland Business Tribune.