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By Ben Proudley
Many truckers will recognize this issues Rig of the Month driver
as Ben Proudley the guy behind the camera at the BC and Alberta Big
Rig Weekends. Ben is one of the dedicated young guns in the
industry who will help keep this industry going well into the
future.
This is his story:
Trucking has been in my blood for as long as I can remember. As
a child I was always fascinated with big trucks and heavy equipment
and I used to love watching the snow plough through the front
window of our house as it worked. I think that is when my love of
trucks first started. I was born and raised in Sudbury Ontario. My
parents are Herb and Kathy Proudley and I have a younger brother
named Graham. My father worked for the city of Sudbury in the
engineering department, and my mother gave up a full time job to
raise the two of us. My Dad was the first to introduce me to big
trucks and equipment. He used to take me and my brother to the city
works yard and many different construction sites to watch the
equipment work. Little did he realize he was setting my career path
at such a young age.
But I think the person who influenced me the most was my
neighbor, Steven Russell. He had two trucks; a big old Freightliner
that ran long-haul for Loomis Courier and a Kenworth day cab that
pulled a three axle end dump trailer. Steve took great pride in his
trucks and it showed by how clean and shiny he kept them.
He gave me my first ride in a truck and that was when I knew
that someday I would be a driver. I imagined it would be cool to be
sitting up high driving through the city in a shiny truck with all
the kids looking up and smiling.
It took me a long time to finally get my class one license. I
had been to college but those options meant being inside and behind
a desk. I knew this type of job was not for me because the only job
I’d had that I liked was working at a masonry yard for one of my
dad’s friends, operating a forklift and getting to drive a one ton
flat deck doing small rush deliveries.
I was working for a consulting firm in Ontario when I met my
girlfriend at the time, Diane. I left the firm due to lack of
interest and went to work doing pre-cast concrete. Diane was being
transferred to B.C. and asked if I wanted to come. When she asked,
I said, “a chance to see the west coast? Let’s pack!” That was 11
years ago. We got married not long after we moved out here.
When we first arrived here I found a job working for Beck
drilling as a driller’s assistant. My first, so called, big truck
to drive was a 1980 something GMC 7500 straight truck with an old
Detroit motor. What a beast to drive, slow and sluggish at the best
of times. I still did my best to keep her clean and looking as good
as I could. I even took the time to straighten the bumper and
repaint it. The great part about working for Beck was seeing most
of B.C at someone else’s expense. I quite enjoyed the mix of hard
labor and driving. Unfortunately, one of the draw backs was that
winter time was slow and they had to lay me off. Not being able to
sit still, I answered an ad in the paper looking for tow truck
drivers. I went to work driving for Unitow in Vancouver, at the
time they had the Vancouver police towing contract. I loved that
job, doing by-law enforcement in Vancouver, the rush that came from
trying to load a car and get away before getting caught was unreal.
Being in the middle of an accident scene trying to get it cleared
as fast as possible was also a big rush. But being paid on
commission is not an easy way to make a living. I got a call to
return to Beck and I took it. But it did not take long for me to
get tired of spending so much time traveling around B.C. It was
starting to affect my home life. So I decided to go back to
school.
I took an Entry Level Trades Training program at BCIT in diesel
engine repair and rebuilding. While I went to school, I went back
to work as a tow truck driver only this time in a bigger truck; a 3
ton Hino belonging to a friend of mine. Now I could haul bigger
trucks, thus fuelling the urge to get a class one. Once I graduated
from school, I worked at Southern Railway of B.C as a mechanic’s
assistant doing various upgrades to GE locomotives. It was only a
contract position, so when it ended I took a job at Southern as a
brakeman. Switching rail cars was pretty cool but the constant
graveyard shifts were getting to me.
I heard another friend of mine was looking for a driver
for a three ton flat deck tow truck. Since I really missed towing
and driving, I went back again. It was a pimped out ride, lots of
LED lights and a strobe bar. I loved to keep that truck clean and
shiny. The truck was working for Drake Towing in Vancouver.
I did a lot of work for the film industry hauling stunt cars,
collector cars, customs and proto types. I soon became the
go-to-guy to haul weird stuff. My favorite ones to haul were the
cars that had been lowered. They always presented a challenge in
one way or another. Drake also had quite a few accounts with
high-end car companies, so there was no shortage of nice rides to
haul. Working there allowed me to tow everything from a helicopter
to an airplane and even an Indy race car. But once again the long
hours for not enough money were getting to me.
I thought about going back to work as a mechanic’s
apprentice but most shops wanted you to have a class one. So I
figured why not? I always wanted to get my class one and now I had
a great reason to do so. I did a little homework on schools and
decided to get it through North Shore Driving School.
Once I had it, I started to look for an apprenticeship. Everyone
I spoke to were not paying enough money for my liking. I decided
that while I kept hunting for a good job I should find a tow
company that had bigger trucks to drive and was closer to home.
I had been parking my Drake truck at Clover towing, so I
spoke to the owner’s son and he gave me a job on the spot driving
one of their three ton flat decks. But I found it was harder to
make good money when not doing as much specialty work and this
meant I had to work longer and longer hours just to make a good
buck to survive
I still had not been able to find a good apprenticeship anywhere
so I decided to look for a trucking job. I knew in my heart that
that was what I really wanted to do with my life. I answered an ad
in the paper from a company looking for a forklift driver/relief
truck driver and I got the job. Now I was getting somewhere.
I spent most of the first year doing more driving than warehouse
work due to injury problems with a few of the drivers. This was
good since I needed the experience. I was working for Univar
Canada, a chemical company hauling in-house products. I learned a
lot about how to load a truck safely and about the laws that
governed hauling dangerous goods.
My dog Echo often rode shotgun with me when I was towing and in
2002 we added a second swamper to our crew with the birth of my son
Nicholas.
After being the relief driver for about two years, a full time
driving job came open in a five ton. I jumped at it simply because
I hated being stuck in the warehouse. It was at this time that my
marriage ended.
I was reading Pro-Trucker Magazine one day in 2003 and saw that
they needed volunteers for the B.C. Big Rig Weekend. I let them
know I was available and showed up Saturday morning to help out. At
some point in the day, as the story goes, I jumped into Tori’s golf
cart and never left. We started to date not long after that. The
following year the magazine’s photographer Kathy Fitzpatrick fell
while working and was seriously injured. John heard from Tori that
I was a bit of an amateur photographer so I was given a camera and
a swift kick in the pants and have been doing it ever since.
During the time I worked at Univar, I also worked on the side
for Clover towing. I had started to learn how to operate a five ton
single axle tow truck on weekends to make a few extra bucks. The
five ton grew into a 25 ton tandem wrecker, now I was really
playing with the big boys. I loved attending big wrecks; there were
never two the same. Each one involved using my brain to figure the
best way to get the truck up and out of the way without causing
additional damage.
One afternoon I was approached by the owner to fly to Québec to
pick up their new tandem tilt deck that they were going to use to
haul equipment. I jumped at the opportunity to drive across most of
Canada, something that I had always wanted to do. It was also a
chance to see my Grandmother, who was very ill, one more time
before she passed away. What a trip! It was the middle of winter,
driving from Montreal to Vancouver with no real highway experience.
The scenery was amazing. The only real problem I had was the
highway being closed outside Winnipeg for a short time. Other than
that it was an uneventful trip.
After four years or so at Univar, I’d had about as much B.S. as
I could take from my dispatcher. Lucky for me, one of my customers,
West Coast Reductions, was looking to add to their driving fleet,
so I went to work for them. What an interesting job to say the
least. For the first little while I spent most of my time hauling
used restaurant grease out of back alleys all over the Lower
Mainland and Whistler. But not long into it, I was trained to haul
roll off bins, and do a bit of tanker work. The bins contained
chicken guts and feathers from the processing of the birds while
the tanker work was hauling blood from the processing plant. All of
the stuff collected was recycled and used in animal feeds, women’s
make up and to make bio-diesel. By far this was both one of the
weirdest and coolest jobs I have had. But working long hours and
weekends were not making my home life simple. My son wanted to see
more of his dad, as did my girlfriend, Tori.
Once again I heard through a friend about a job he was leaving
because he was moving on to other things. I applied and I have been
working for Hertz Equipment Rentals in Surrey B.C. ever since.
I love my job. I have managed to combine the two things I love
most: heavy equipment and trucking. My truck is a 2005
International 9200i, pulling a 2005 Trail King walking axle step
deck. I work mostly Monday to Friday with the odd call out at night
or on weekends. The hours vary day to day, but I am almost always
home early enough to spend good time with my loved ones. I work
with a great crew and I get along surprisingly well with my
dispatcher, which is against the driver code, but it’s sure a
welcome change. I haul various pieces of equipment to points
all over the Lower Mainland, Whistler, and the B.C. interior. The
toughest part of my job is dealing with the traffic in the Lower
Mainland and trying to make deliveries on time. Other than that I
quite enjoy being a town driver. My job is never the same day to
day, I may haul the same equipment, but each job site I deliver to
has its own set of challenges.
Since we met five years ago, Tori has been a great support to
both Nicholas and I. As was announced last year at Alberta Big Rig,
Tori and I are getting married in August of this year.
It has been a long road to get to where I am both personally and
professionally. It hasn’t always been a smooth road but everything
I have done has made me who I am today and I wouldn’t change a
thing.
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