David Currie, EM at Bayview Golf & Country Club in Thornhill, Ontario is the rare turf tech who received an education in turf mechanics. After a long-term layoff from workin’ on the railroad, David entered a program where his first apprenticeship interview featured tire changes and troubleshooting tests. David shares with us his latest fab projects including bench grinder stands, and backpack blower holders to prevent the dreaded “why won’t this start”s. Our host and David share their mutual love of the Toro 648 aerifier and discuss what happened the day David was ready to pack his tools and go home. Find out which tip from a previous episode saved David’s wood-cutting cottaging weekend (are we Canadian yet, eh?) and get an excellent reminder: there’s always tomorrow.
Transcript
Trent Manning:
welcome to the reel turf techs podcast for the technician that wants to get reel follow along. As we talk to industry professionals and address hot topics that we all face along the way we’ll learn tips and tricks. I’m your host, Trent. Manny let’s have some Welcome to the real turf tax podcast, episode 35. Today, we’re talking to David Curie. He’s the equipment manager at Bayview golf and country club and Thornhill, Ontario. Bayview is an 18 hole private club that operates year round. Including curling. Dome tennis courts for indoor play. And an indoor golf simulator. David is the sole technician in the shop and has been at Bayview for 19 years. David has 90% Torah equipment for cutting grass, with a smattering of other manufacturers to fill in his plate. Let’s talk to David. Welcome David to the Reel Turf Techs podcast. How are you doing today?
David Currie:
Excellent, Trent. Thanks for having me on how about yourself today?
Trent Manning:
I’m doing great. Thank you so much for coming on.
David Currie:
Good. Excited.
Trent Manning:
We’ll get a ride to it. How’d you get into the turf industry.
David Currie:
Well, Trent, it’s a bit of a convoluted kind of a explanation, but I’ll, I’ll try to keep it simple as possible. I I kind of grew up going summer vacations at a family. Friend’s nine hole executive course. I, so I had summer there for a couple of weeks, which is funny because you know, go out that night, help move roller sprinklers and do all that kind of old school kind of greens keeping. And so I kinda got a feed in it there. And then, you know, time goes on. That’s when I was a kid. Right. Long story short or shorter. I I was, I worked for the railway CP rail
Trent Manning:
Okay.
David Currie:
That’s still, now I’m in my twenties. And I was on a long-term layoff and a good friend. And I’m just not somebody to sit idle like that. I couldn’t handle it. I was probably about three months into my lay off It was driving me crazy. So a really good friend of mine that knows me well, that we grew up you know, dirt bike and, and ripping things apart. And we were, we used to put together a demolition Derby cars and
Trent Manning:
okay. Yeah.
David Currie:
out of county fairs. And so he said I just got an information I just saw in a in a newsletter. Cause he was an alumni of this local college, Durham college. They’re having a pre-apprenticeship turf mechanics program it’s put on by unemployment or it doesn’t matter if you’re buy was unemployed, but I was still getting a company pay at the time, but it didn’t, it didn’t matter. So I said, this is great. They actually interviewed you and to eliminate the, you know, unwanted candidates, so to speak and I got into that and just kind of took off from there. I got along real well with one of the profs and they worked at, so you would work you’re in class during the winter. And then when the summer came up, they give you a time off to go, to get try to get a job in the industry. You know, if it’s at a small Indian shop or, or or a golf course. Yeah. And I I asked him, I said, do you know anybody that’s looking for an assistant? And he didn’t hesitate. He put me on to this guy that was looking for an assistant at a, at a private golf course in Thornhill, Ontario. And I went for an interview and we struck it off really well. He had a couple other guys he interviewed at the time and, and it, it, it kind of went from there. I got to. A chance to do a working interview day with him. And he put me through a couple of different scenarios troubleshooting and things like that. And I got the job and it was, it went from there. I did a four year apprenticeship with them
Trent Manning:
Good. I out. Stop you right there and tell us how that worked on your day interview. Because I think that’s something that’s definitely interested in me. Hopefully it’s interesting to the listeners. And I know how hard it is to just do a normal interview and judge a candidate and try to figure out if they got it or not.
David Currie:
Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was kind of, it’s a lot of a blur because it was over 20 plus years ago,
Trent Manning:
Well, I understand, but you still probably remember the gist of it.
David Currie:
I do actually cause I’m in the process of trying to get an assistant. And so I was trying to rehash those scenarios as well. So it kind of, he just, he gave me the first task he gave me. Changed some tires. He gave me a couple of tires and the tire machine show me how to use it, that kind of thing, a rambled through a bit of that. And then later in the day, he wanted to do some troubleshooting. So he set up an old G one Yamaha golf cart and he sabotaged it in a few areas. And he gave me, gave me a multimeter and said, Okay. find out why this thing isn’t running right now, the pedal keys on the pedals there. He said, find out why it isn’t running. So just to try to deduce, you know, antagonize your, your thought process and the troubleshooting and the way it turned out, it was, it was basically he said, just to keep it the kiss kiss method, keep it simple,
Trent Manning:
All right.
David Currie:
you know? And what he had done was he put some in electrical tape inside the terminal and the negative.
Trent Manning:
Okay. Yep. Yep.
David Currie:
Yeah. And I had to go through the fact that, you know, how come I’m not getting powered here or there and everything else. And then I said, well, then let’s check out the connections kind of thing. And that’s what he was trying to force you into is that they didn’t find it with the multimeter. But I found out I wasn’t getting powered switch and get all those kinds of processes and now find out why. And and that’s what it was. He had sabotage the the negative post on the terminal on the battery and let me pull it off. And he’s got this big glob of tape
Trent Manning:
Yeah.
David Currie:
it wasn’t obvious at first cause he hit it pretty well, but I mean, again, it’s worst you into that, but analytical kind of thought process and process, you know, process of elimination. And then we also touched on a bit of reel stuff because in the, in the short course that we did, there was some reel technology and some hydraulics and stuff like that, but nothing too serious. And that was basically. Basically it for the first day, that kind of the day they job interview.
Trent Manning:
no, that’s cool. Very cool. Well, I’m sorry to interrupt. You can get back to your story,
David Currie:
no. That’s that’s excellent.
Trent Manning:
that was definitely interesting and something I’m going to consider in the future.
David Currie:
Yeah. absolutely. And that’s the kind of thought that I had to. I haven’t had to apply it yet because I haven’t had an apprentice I’ve had to interview everybody. I’ve had, I’ve had some help in the shop in the past. And it was all just basically guys that had been on the crew. So I’ve never really had to put them through an interview process. It was just coming to help me out. But now, now going forward, we’re, we’re looking to get an assistant in the shop with me. So I had, I was those little tricks that I was trying to think conjure up that, Oh, yeah, I gotta try. With the guy that I’m going to be hired.
Trent Manning:
Yeah.
David Currie:
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that was, that was it, it kind of, the rest is history. I worked with him for, I got the job at thorn hill country club. The gentleman’s name is Mark Atkinson and he was one of these guys that he’s in a baster of our industry. And I’d love, I wish he was on a lot more social platforms like Twitter and things like that. This guy is credible. He basically set me up to, I think there’s, there’s gotta be at least five of us that are in the industry still that he’s had over the last 20 years.
Trent Manning:
Oh, wow. Awesome.
David Currie:
Yeah. A couple of them are in our chat. One is Chad and another one is Chris. Anyway, long story short, just in the general Toronto area, there’s probably four or five different, four different types. That have come out of his apprenticeship program.
Trent Manning:
That’s all.
David Currie:
Yeah, it’s been really good. So
Trent Manning:
We’re going to have to have him on.
David Currie:
Yeah. Well, if you remember, I, I asked you to add somebody recently and I gave you his number, but he didn’t have the app, the WhatsApp program. This is him. That’s that’s him. He hasn’t taken the time to download download the WhatsApp to get onto that format yet. Yes. Anyway, he’s he’s awesome. But Yeah. so I did four years apprenticeship with him did a separate, like a staggered kind of start program where it was like a 60, 40 split 40% in the morning, out on the course, you know, doing general things like learning how his big proponent of get out on the equipment, learn how it runs because you have in the future will know how to diagnose stuff better if you know how it runs and how things are, things are supposed to sound. So I did that. For the first two years. And then as I got into my last few years with more, I was getting more time in the shop and less time out on the course. Cause I was proving myself that I wanted to do it and I was learning. So they were willing to put that time into me. So it was good.
Trent Manning:
Awesome.
David Currie:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
Walk us through your daily shop routine.
David Currie:
Oh goodness. You know, the fear of sounding redundant as far as the way a lot of other guys have said their days go out, but it’s still it’s, it’s get in there in the morning. You know, you take the time, I’m about a 20 minute commute work. So you’re kind of thinking of how I’m going to spend my day and you know, some PM work. I’ve got some stuff up that has come up that I know I’ve got to get at the hours are up, but then you get into the shop and it’s jump on the cart and go for drives, especially at a mole day, get out on the course and see how things are going. Hopefully catch something, if you can see anything. And then it’s parlay that back into going to the shop and try to bring in that PM stuff and deal with the daily incidental. So your daily plan just gets shot, all that, you know what and yeah, just kinda just go with the punches, try to just deal with the fires as they come, and then you get a second to breathe and go. Okay. Where was I?
Trent Manning:
right, right. Yep. And then, then you got more fires coming.
David Currie:
exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It’s, that’s the problem with wearing so many hats. It’s just, you get, you’re getting pulled in so many different directions
Trent Manning:
Oh yeah, for sure. Do you really.
David Currie:
I, no, I don’t, I shouldn’t say that. I don’t. I used to I don’t have equipment to really. Years ago, I had a couple of big John Deere, three reels. I can’t remember the model numbers, just numbers like that. To me, just don’t stick in my head, but it was a three rail and we used it for our intermediate first cut. it was a big, big eight inch reel I believe. And the land width were so huge. So
Trent Manning:
26 53.
David Currie:
That’s probably it. Yeah,
Trent Manning:
when I guess.
David Currie:
it. Yeah, there you go. And so every winter there’s a local college that had fully an old, old, fully relieved grinder. I’d go in and just grind it off and just try to reduce the material. You know, all the, the basics. I wasn’t, I don’t backlash. So it wasn’t for facilitate backlog thing. It was just basically to help, help that big land with make sure it’s not such a big beefing thing when it’s out there,
Trent Manning:
Right, right.
David Currie:
easy, make it easier to sharp.
Trent Manning:
you ever backlash then your career?
David Currie:
As far as my own equipment, I haven’t 20 plus years. I’ve, I’ve never backed lapped anything. Cause I’ve always had Bernards and predominantly Toro equipment throughout my career. And if, if it needs to be sharpened, I put the time in and sharpen it. not saying that Baclofen isn’t important or validate the fact that it is, it is. But a lot of the time, if I’m in a situation where I think something needs to be backlash, especially like my fairy units, where it’s the edge max blade, their bed nights
Trent Manning:
Mm.
David Currie:
and the edge series reels I’ll go in and do a quality cut check quite regularly on my fairway units. And then if they’re not cutting up to snuff, I’ll give it a quick face grind and just bring that, you know, front edge of the face up the bed knife up back to you know, a good quality. And usually it’s enough to get me by. I can boss them apart one by one. Cause I’ve got four 30, 35, 50 spare units. So if I have one out on a Mo day, they only have three to use. It’s not a big deal. Like bust it apart, break it down by that. But Yeah. So let’s get back to your question. We’ll back backslapping. Like I don’t, I’ve never really done it on a regular basis. The only thing I’ve ever really backlash is side jobs. You know, people with their little, little, little push, a lawn Morse and things like that. And that’s the only thing I’ve ever really backlash to any, to any degree.
Trent Manning:
Well, I was just curious as long as you’ve been in the industry, not that you’re that old, you look younger than me, but I’ve been here. I’ve been around for quite some time too. And I mean, when I was coming up, that’s all we done was back lab, but we didn’t have a bed knife grinder at all. We had a real grinder and we done a lot of back laughing.
David Currie:
I understand it has its place. Right. And, and, and I get it where you’ve got fairway units. And if you don’t have the time or a hoist to get them in, you just put them in the backlog mode and go out and, and keep things as true and as sharp as you can, it has its place. it showed us.
Trent Manning:
us something you’ve fabricated lately?
David Currie:
You know, what I being on my own a lot of the time winter time is maybe some time, like I fabricated utility trailers. Right. So for a push more and you know, you see it on Twitter all the time. It’s guys upgrading stuff. I’ve fabricated a bench grinder stand. I used old reels as the feet and, you know, and made a bench grinder out. Stand Oh, some like backpack blower holders for the utility, for the carts,
Trent Manning:
Okay. Yup.
David Currie:
I don’t know about you, but I know it’s going to forward in the, in your questions, but one of my pet peeves is going out on the course and seeing a backpack floor lying on its belly with the hose up in the air.
Trent Manning:
Oh yeah, yeah.
David Currie:
And then they’re bringing it to you five minutes later. Wondering why it won’t start. Oh
Trent Manning:
Hmm.
David Currie:
I hate that. I hate that.
Trent Manning:
But what about certain the backpack blower and the seat of the golf cart?
David Currie:
yeah. Then you repairing seat covers.
Trent Manning:
exactly. Yup. Yup. There’s definitely a telltale sign that hole in the back of the seat. So I know exactly what happened here.
David Currie:
Yeah, exactly. Or they’re, they’re doing a tease and ties if you will. And that’s what we do is tease and ties is doing the curbing around all the teas and you blowing the curving out. So we brand new fleet of club cars and the guy thought he was getting smart and he put the blower in the passenger seat, hold the wand, the back, decide and drive along the car path. And then look, what’s that rubber smell. Oh my gosh.
Trent Manning:
Sometimes these people are smarter than they need to be.
David Currie:
yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah.
Trent Manning:
What’s your, what’s your favorite tool?
David Currie:
You know what I have a lot of Toro guys will tell you, it’s my five H ranch. I had one in, unfortunately, you know, when you’re looking for something and you can never find it, but then when you stop looking forward, it shows. Well, I lost a five acre wrench and it came back to me about two months later and it had the box end of it, bladed off because of a rotary more. And
Trent Manning:
Oh, wow.
David Currie:
in a very good horse shoe shape that that tool was my, the best real adjustment tool ever. Cause you could get it in and you could use it as a, as a to the Toro reels and use it with some torque on it, you know, laterally and, or you could wiggle it in from the side of the motor and get it on the adjustment nut. And then unfortunately I think I left it on a reel and it went back out to the golf and has come back. So but outside of that, like favorite tool again, I would say. Are our computers like our laptops and our, and our phones, like the way things are going now with QR codes and everything else, how fast you could pull up a parts breakdown or, you know, order a part like it’s, it’s unbelievable. I think the, the not underrated, but just underutilized, maybe Geyser you know, not using their phones and tablets and things I would on the course or in the shop, but a, another favorite tool is not shop related is I saw this conversation on Twitter the other day and it, it hit a nerve because I think it’s a hundred percent accurate. And one of the best tools is the Toros 6 48, not to be brand specific, but the Toro 6 48, aerifier I think it’s one of the best innovations in aerification
Trent Manning:
I don’t think, I don’t think anybody would argue with you hands down, hands down,
David Currie:
hands down,
Trent Manning:
The 6 48 is a heck of a machine.
David Currie:
it’s unbelievable. Just the question, like the quality of work it does and what it does every day. I’ve got two of them that are one state, a, an old four and the other one’s an old 13. And for what they do every day when they’re working, they’re never, they’re equally not in the shop as well. Like they’re so, so already. So I would put that on one of my favorite, favorite tools as well, even though it’s creating, it’s great. It worked for us because what comes next? Jesus was saying
Trent Manning:
for sure. For sure.
David Currie:
But but for as far as the tool all around, that’s one of the best piece of equipment out there, like innovations in the last, you know, 20 something years.
Trent Manning:
yeah, I’m waiting to see what, what we’re going to start mowing grass with next.
David Currie:
Yeah,
Trent Manning:
the real is only been around for
David Currie:
yeah.
Trent Manning:
or A little bit longer, so
David Currie:
You know what, that’s funny. That’s a funny topic that brings me back to this guy that it was in pre-apprenticeship school and he was a Russian and he was thinking out of the box and he brought up to the prof one day, he says, Mike, could we just cut grass with lasers? What’s a stop process. Right? Add some little low effort, low heat laser, and put it into a head assembly. I’m like, wow. That’s, that’s a pretty innovative thought process right there.
Trent Manning:
I wonder what it, quarter rise, the cut and leave the plant less acceptable to disease and that kind of stuff.
David Currie:
sure. You don’t, you don’t have any pinching tearing or, you know, or a bad real that you know, on one of your heads should be pretty consistent. Yeah. Considering I don’t know the number, but I’m sure. it’s a high percentage of water content that’s in those plants lakes. So I don’t know how the laser’s going to react to that. Yeah, it should be kind of neat.
Trent Manning:
And who knows what we’ll be working on and 10, 20, 30 years.
David Currie:
yeah.
Trent Manning:
Hopefully I’m retiring here in about 30 years,
David Currie:
So 30. Oh, that’s a good process.
Trent Manning:
What do you like best about.
David Currie:
I think it’s the variety. Like I, again, I think everybody seems, it seems renowned everybody in the industry on the EMS side, or even on the turf side that says just a variety of the day. It’s never the same. I liked that coming to work every day and then if you have a bad minute and something’s going on and you know, you feel like blowing up, you jump on your cart and you’re out on the course and you kind of things, you feel your blood pressure come down a little bit.
Trent Manning:
yup. Yup.
David Currie:
You know, I think that’s, that’s the major part is that it’s not that I’ve got friends that are. I grew up with people that were in the automotive industry for GM. There’s a town nearby. It’s big Joshua. It was a big GM GM plant and sat, redundancy every day, regretting going to work, you know, the same thing over and over, not seeing the sun or anything. I have a lot of friends that are, are very envious because I’d say I love my job. And that’s in a lot of people can say they love their job.
Trent Manning:
Oh, yeah, for
David Currie:
it, it’s not a, it’s not a problem for me to get up in the morning and go to work because of the environment, the culture that we work in. And Yeah. it’s awesome. I think it’s just a variety. It’s nothing the same, you know, it could be, but as we were talking about earlier, you’re putting out those fires once in a while, And those are the things that keep you or keep you sharp,
Trent Manning:
yeah. Yeah, for sure.
David Currie:
you know? Yeah.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. And not me, not that I’m encouraging failures or breakdowns, but you know, I, I get excited when I say, Ooh, this is going to be a good electrical problem. I get to do some troubleshooting on this. You know, just cause you know, your, your tire changes are all changes and all that stuff. You’ve done one, you’ve done them all.
David Currie:
Yeah,
Trent Manning:
So the troubleshooting aspect and, trying to solve problems, that’s what we do.
David Currie:
absolutely. That, that kind of brings me to a tweet. I shot out the other day where it’s the idea you sometimes your initial reaction is to get in deep into stuff. I had a no start on a 3,500 Sidewinder. But as you get experience, you know, that the way to eliminate kind of certain things that could be wrong is by what it’s doing. You turn the key switch on those. And if your seats with sister good in your, in your your seat switch and your neutral switch. You know that fuel pump’s going to come on. Cause you could hear it, click it away. So, Okay. I know all my, all my safety switches are good, but then you don’t hear that click for the relay when you turn that key and then that takes you a different direction. So I got into like, oh, maybe it’s the relay, maybe this, maybe that, but I went back to fuse for the start for the key switch and checked it. Oh no, it looks good. Put it back in and started getting into things. And then my I head-scratcher and I was like, what the heck’s going on here? So let me double back to these fuses. And I took the fuse out and it did it. It’s one of those ones that doesn’t have the big beefy the blade in between the two posts. It’s like a little wire and I look at it again and I’m like, I think this is burnt out. So put the meter on it and do a continuity check and sure enough, it looks great if you put it up to the sun or whatever, and it looks great. You looking at. And I’m like, God, dang it. I just messed an hour up here. And it’s the darn views, plural that 10 amp fuse in and away she goes, but the fuse went low because it was amping up because the terminal was a little loose. So it was that’s when they’re trying to start at the, it amped up a bit because the terminal was a little loose on the battery, which blew the fuse. But I didn’t realize that until after I found a few and I’m like, oh, well what made the fuse pop? Right. And that’s, they’d left the lights on, on the thing. And overnight it was a little loose, but anyway, long story short, that was the, keep it simple, you know, kind of process
Trent Manning:
Yeah. I don’t know. I think we all eat some humble pie from time to time on stuff like that. And you kick yourself, beat yourself up, but we probably should tell you a little bit easier on ourselves because the job we do is not, not the easiest job in the. But it’s definitely fun and rewarding as why we’re doing it.
David Currie:
Absolutely. It’s, it’s one of those kind of industries where you have that there is no instant gratification to when you’re doing your rights, because you go out to that property and you can see right away, everything that we do is relative what’s going on at the courts. And if we’re not doing our job, right, they’re spending more money on chemicals and the course doesn’t look good, aesthetically, you know? And it that’s part of it that I really enjoys it. Cause I, I grew up being a golfer around it and I love the aesthetics part of it as well. And you directly can see what we do and if we’re doing it right, it, it looks sharp out there. Things are playing well and rolling. True. And I love it.
Trent Manning:
Yep. What is the strangest thing you’ve seen?
David Currie:
Well, let me tell you the strangest thing I’ve had a couple one I’ll, I’ll take a piece of that humble pie you’re talking about. And I was in my second, second year of my apprenticeship at Thornhill country club with mark. And we had a John Deere tractor with this new aerifier on the back as a demo and distributors dropped it off to us and said, here you go. Here’s a couple of days. You guys can do what you want with it. So it was my job at the end of the day to rally up the stragglers and put them in the barn. Well, this tractor in this aerifier were there and this is back in the early nineties. So hydrostat tractors were just kind of starting to come out. Right. I’m an old farm boy. I like to stick shit. So.
Trent Manning:
yeah. Yeah.
David Currie:
So I got on this thing and I guess I should have asked a few more questions, but I pulled it around to the bar where it’s supposed to go in the barn and the guys had already shut the door, pull, roll down door. So I jump off of it and I constantly can’t remember if I ever set a parking brake in and thinking if I just put it here, shut it off. The gears are gonna hold it in place. Like an old tractor. It’s pretty good parking brake. Right. I just shut it off and walked around to the back of the barn and open up the rolling door. Well, the next sound was thud my jaw hitting the ground because the tractor wasn’t there. I’m like, okay, God I’m okay guys, what’s going on? Well, I had it pointed in a direction that was a downhill grade and a hill that dropped a good 150.
Trent Manning:
Oh, wow. Okay.
David Currie:
I go, I walk out there and I looked down the hill and its tree covered and sure enough, there’s this tracker about 30 yards down, down the hill. And the only reason it did go through the bottom was cause it pinned up against the tree. Awful. Yeah. that was I walked back to the shop at that point. I’ll admit it. I was crying and freaking out telling my boss like Keith Bartlett was the superintendent there at the time. And I said, he’s gonna fire me. What’s going on? He’s trying to calm down Dave Del what’s going on as well. I explained the story to him and his jaw hit the ground as well. And then it was, you know, program a recovery, you know, put into action after that. But that was a scary day. the boss came to me afterwards. He was pretty shattered, but he says, I’m going to talk to you later. I don’t, I can’t talk to you right now, but
Trent Manning:
Yeah.
David Currie:
Like I said, I was ready to pack up the little tools I had at the time and walked down the road and I was canned, he gave me the benefit of the doubt said, no, no, you’re okay. That, you know, as they say it happens, you know, accidents happen and you were truthful about it and you didn’t know any different. So that was a, that was a big one. I tell that story all the time to guides, especially new hires and stuff. I mean, it happens my first job outside on a work for mark, it was kind of pushed me out of the nest type thing. I went and worked for this company. It’s they’re a big conglomerate of courses up here called club link. And it was my first EMS job. And I went in there and they had these old Toro sand pros. Didn’t have a parking brake. Didn’t have anything. The only way you get this thing to stop is to put the rate down. So I get the call. This. Third weekend to the end of the summer. And we can’t, something’s happened to the sand pro and that’s all I got and it’s at the 18th green while they can green. There’s a big pond right beside it, right near the sand trap. And it has a little holder in the back for the, for the trap break. So like the handheld trap rate. So it stands up pretty tall. I get there and I go, well, where’s the sand bro. What’s happening. He points to the little pond. It’s all, it could see us, the rake sitting up there, bubbles coming out and I’m like, oh gosh, was it running? I can’t remember. He says, I’m like, well, I guess it doesn’t matter now. And that was his initiation into the crew that cause this guy was new too. And he had stripped down to his knickers, went in and said, see this book, if you can find it, hook it onto something. But that was that was a big day because that was, you know, it was a brand new machine. Oh boy. little things happen. Stranger things have happened, but sometimes you just take it for granted kind of go on with your day.
Trent Manning:
I think you made an important point though, if you’re honest with your employer and tell them what happened, usually they’re pretty understanding far as I know, as long as I’ve been doing this, we’ve never fired an employee for damaging a piece of equipment, even though we may have my shit or sometimes. But though we haven’t.
David Currie:
A hundred percent. Yeah. we haven’t either did far as I remember, unless it’s a repeat offender with one person, you know, misusing something and constantly at the same part of the golf course, like how do you not know that raised man old cover was there? You’ve hit it five times in
Trent Manning:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Yup.
David Currie:
on, man.
Trent Manning:
Yup.
David Currie:
yeah, no, we haven’t.
Trent Manning:
I will tell you a quick story. I heard at another course, and I don’t, I don’t know what this person’s problem was, but they were training him on grains and they’re using like John Deere fixed head my worst, and they had the transport tires. So they told him you got to take the tires off the, of the green. And he would leave the tires on my other grade. And so they kept having these issues with him and they finally tell him, this is your last chance. You gotta take the tires off before you mow the gray. So they check up on him later, keep a straight face because he has taken off one tire and left one tire own. How do you do that? I don’t even, it just blows my mind that anyone could do that.
David Currie:
Hey.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. So he was mowing the green with one tire on and one tire off. So they said, all right, buddy. You’re you’re done.
David Currie:
Yes.
Trent Manning:
That ain’t going to work.
David Currie:
Defeating a lot on purposes right there.
Trent Manning:
yes.
David Currie:
Goodness.
Trent Manning:
What would be your dream job or opportunity?
David Currie:
You know what I, again, I kinda, I think I’m kinda in my dream job. I’ve been there. Well, this is my 19th season. The only way I think I could get into a dream job would definitely be in this industry, but maybe at a, at a club where you’re the head tech somewhere and you got a few guys working for me, you know, transitioning maybe into that retirement stage where you’re not turning a wrench every day or get dirty in the dirt on your nails. I think that might be a dream job transition outside of what we’re already. Just to have that control and again, giving the opportunity to other guys to flourish and come up in the industry and like get an apprenticeship kind of program. I think there isn’t too many of those kinds of setups here and in Canada where you’ve got 1:00 AM and I’m in a couple of more than one or two guys working with them on a full-time basis. So I if I could find that I would, I think I would definitely throw my hat into the ring for something like that. Just, just to get into that part of the business and kind of push back and make sure, you know, the shelves are stocked and guys are, you know, doing their job and helping out and troubleshooting and, and that kind of stuff.
Trent Manning:
yep. I got you.
David Currie:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
What do you know now that you wish you known on day one?
David Currie:
Oh, I think it, I think it’s more, don’t be so hard on you. You know, there’s always tomorrow, you’re, you’re paid on an eight hour spectrum as far as the day is concerned because we’re salary. Don’t burn yourself out so much, you know, I know when you’re younger and you’re in the business and you’ve got lots of, you know, energy and bigger you putting your time and sometimes it’s, you’ve gotta be able to say, you know what, this will be here tomorrow. Just give yourself that time. Cause it’s, I guess what I’m in a roundabout way, what I’m trying to say is a work life balance is be more profession on being, having a work-life balance when you’re younger do, because it’s a, if what problem arise, you know, if it doesn’t need to be done right away, just, just give yourself the time and get, come back to it tomorrow kind of thing. There’s always, there’s always tomorrow. Like that’s the biggest thing. Cause when I was younger, I was doing 12, 13 hour days. My first couple of places I went to when I was in my early in my career, a lot of this stuff was really disheveled. I had to put a lot of time in to get it up to specs, to what I believed need that need to happen. Right. But again, you’re young and you can kind of handle it, but at the same time, I was not going, you know, meet my friends for baseball game on a Friday night because I was, you know, re real and stuff or, you know, just a gamut of things. Right? It’s that work-life balance I think is be more proactive to having a good work life balance.
Trent Manning:
No, I think is a really, really good one and something that especially younger people do not think about
David Currie:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
because you’re just living in the moment.
David Currie:
Yeah. you’re living in the moment. and you tend to get lost and talked about this in our WhatsApp group and it’s also mindfulness, you know, just being, if you’re having trouble with something don’t hesitate to call. So. You Pick up the phone because we’ve got an incredible community of people and all we can reach out on Twitter or WhatsApp, or just even your own mental mindfulness. If you’re struggling with stuff, be open with your boss, be open with the people around you, and maybe they’d be able to help you give this, give you that support that you need, or that, like, I’m not one that needs a pat on the back, let me know on doing a good job. There is people like that, but I, it, sometimes you just gotta pull back and say, you know what, I’m in the middle of something, I’m kind of struggling with it. And lot more times, more times than not, there’ll be understanding or say can relate a story. Did kind of help me feel better about things, you know, because that’s almost years gone by is, you know, mental mind, mindfulness and everything else. It was kind of taboo to talk about. And now I think it needs to be at the. And help guys out with the stuff they’re going on because there’s out there. There’s people out there that are going through the exact same things. You’re not alone. Well,
Trent Manning:
Oh, yeah, for sure. And here at real TIFF real turf tags, we’re going to be addressing that. You probably seen it in the WhatsApp group. Some stuff came up and we put together it’ll probably end up being about four episodes and I hope to be releasing them very soon.
David Currie:
Excellent. That’s great.
Trent Manning:
This cat to get them edited up and shipped out the door.
David Currie:
That’s be, that’s gotta be quite the process for you like this, this again, like I, I know some other guys have touched on it, but I’m going to say it now. And if you use it, this is great, but I got to really thank you for putting this kind of stuff out there. There’s a lot of programs and you know, guys are doing podcasts, but this is just really great what you’re doing and giving people a voice and allow to communicate What? their stories are. You know, Karen people’s lives realizing that we’re all kind of cut from the same cloth. I think that’s why we’re in the business and we’re doing what we’re doing that appreciate, appreciate the time that you’re putting into this.
Trent Manning:
well, thank you. And I appreciate that. And I think when I was traveling around working with the Toro distributor and just, you know, this was kinda my thing. And even when I started the podcast, I don’t, I hadn’t put the two and two together, but when you would go to a new shop and meet a new equipment manager or technician or mechanic or whatever you want to call itself, I would, you know, how’d you get started, you know, you just shoot shooting the, the bowl, if you will, back and forth. And It was really fun. You get to meet people, you get to know people better, you get to know what their strong points are. You, you know, you walk into their shop and you can see, well, this guy’s super organized or vice versa. Yeah. This place is a mess, you know, but whatever. And I mean, that’s one thing, another thing I’ll, I’ll have to say. Normally the people that had really messy shops were probably some of the smarter mechanics
David Currie:
Okay.
Trent Manning:
and yeah. And you can take that for what it is,
David Currie:
well, I was about to say, I’m not going to call myself a smart mechanic, but my place is definitely organized chaos, for sure. Like that’s, I’m in all of the Pattersons and that guy and like the CHADS and you see shots on Twitter of their, of their shops and how organized, and they call it OCD and all this stuff, but it’s that to have that level. Yes. They’ve got people at work with them that help them out, but. You’ve come in and you’re into my shop in every Guinea at any given day. And it looks like a bomb’s gone off on my work bench because there’s stuff everywhere, there’s tools and you know, and my parts room is a mess and like, oh goodness, I really, really got to do something about this.
Trent Manning:
you’ll get there this winter. that was always my thing. I’ll I’ll get to that. This winter one winter never gowns.
David Currie:
yeah, exactly.
Trent Manning:
Oh, Muslim tips and tricks you’ve seen, or you want to share with us.
David Currie:
Well, you know what, there’s, there’s a few of them and that’s kind of the thing, like when you’ve been around, I guess, as long I’ve, you know, I’ve, I’ve been in business since the early nineties, but it take a lot of things for granted that you do on a daily basis. And it just becomes second nature sometimes. And then, you know, at that nice events, like the GCA AA, that the GIS hadn’t been the good fortune of going down to those a couple of times in the round table discussion. And you get talking about things and, you know, you share your things that happen. And we hear a couple of guys go, that’s a great idea. Never thought of that. And it’s just something you do inherently. Right? One of them, I really thought was a great tip. I saw on Twitter lately and it’s been something I’ve seen guys do is full markers for, you know, when you’re using, I’ve seen guys tweet about it. They’re use shaving cream to mark their heads for verification. But this one is the full marker that this one guy tweeted about is actually, you can use it in your, your marker paint, dispenser gun. inverted
Trent Manning:
Okay.
David Currie:
and it’s it’s oh gosh, I can’t remember the name of it now. I wrote it. But it’s it’s, you can put it in your vertical and your inverted Mar paint gun, and you can use it to mark your heads, your geishas, or if you’re doing a dry cut on your greens and you, you know, sometimes it’s hard to see those lines and you can, you, you can just come up out of the approach and put a little late to got the operator to hold onto it. You know, keeping his lab where you can make up a little rig for it, the whole that give it a little shot. And then when they turn around and they know general idea where, where they can line up, I thought it was great. I think that it’s called SIM, sorry, I’m going to butcher this Simplot. S I M P L O T. And that’s the name of the company? I believe they’re a turf and horticultural supply company. So they, they supply aggregates and stuff like that, I believe. And they have this product full market product called D slash bop. And you can get it in different colors. And it’s the, I thought it was just ingenious because I’ve always thought guys you know, you have marker flags out there, then when you’re done your aerification and everything else, you got to go out and take the market’s like, so with this stuff, it’s environmentally friendly, dissolves with water. It’s good on grass and this I just thought it was great. It was a great tip. The
Trent Manning:
Yeah, that sounds like it.
David Currie:
Yeah. Yeah. And then there was another one. I did years back when I got my 6 48 was I took a three-eights extension ratchet extension and welded a socket onto the opposite end of it. And I used that three, the three eights extension marks. It’s a powerful three, eight square for those sets throughs on the the multitasking heads.
Trent Manning:
Okay.
David Currie:
You’re not using a 12 point socket or something like that. And you get that right on there. It’s perfect. I, I tweeted about that a couple of years ago and got a lot of guys saying, Hey, that’s a great idea. So I thought I’d bring that up. Again, I made up a couple of them. So the operator, they get a bedtime. When they’re out on the property, they don’t have to call me and put it on a ratchet and then they can change the tiny note themselves. What was the other one? Oh Yeah. Toro DPA heads, or this could be any kind of head that doesn’t have an eccentric for you to adjust to help with your parallel. I have Toro DPA heads, my greens heads, and I don’t have up to recently, well, I’m getting a new fleet, but recently I haven’t. Toro has a part now a part that you can put on to apply an ecentric to the back roll. So when you’re paralleling your rear back roller to the reel you can get everything nice and straight. In the past. What I did was used a aluminum Popkin as a little ship, as a little, as a little, shim in, in the one side. So when I’ve got everything on the paralleling plate, if I had a couple thousand seconds throwing a little shim in between the the factory blocks that are on either end of the ruler and just get, get me right on spec with that. And that’s, I shared that with a couple of guys and it a good reviews because they never thought of anything. Cause it’s basically a tolerance that they say shouldn’t be there, but it’s there because as soon as you, you know, you localize that real on a, on a fixed head in that back roller and you put a feeler back there. And to me, that bugs me. So that might be an allowable tolerance. The Toro has in those six heads, but I didn’t like it. So that’s like came up with this idea with the aluminum in there, just cut it. up into little pieces and put it in and it’s worked out really well.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, no, that’s awesome. I wanted, I thought for some reason that Toro even made some shams at one point and then at all, good luck finding a part number.
David Currie:
Yeah. You can’t find a part number. And then I also have heard lore that those were actually contact shims for certain reels that they were selling, like as far as real bed night contact,
Trent Manning:
Okay. Yeah.
David Currie:
I had heard that those there was some floating around the guys are using, you know, that like to moderate kind of contact a lot of Toro stuff. They’re using the shim instead to set up their, uh, their bench set. But that could be maybe what they’re for is to put into the, to you know, the rollers. I’m not really sure.
Trent Manning:
I got you.
David Currie:
Pardon me.
Trent Manning:
Oh, no, you’re good.
David Currie:
Okay. Yeah. what else got again? It’s just, there’s so many things and just kind of take advantage, but as far as tips and tricks and. Pretty much it, I would say if you’re not already get on social media platforms, like as, you know, as well, trend Twitters is a gold mine for stuff like that.
Trent Manning:
yeah, for
David Currie:
Guys die Sharon stuff all the time and, and you know what, you’ll be able to apply it to your, to your facility. And if it’s something that just takes that one little less headache out of your, away from you, it’s amazing.
Trent Manning:
Well, the other thing, if you’re already on social media and it’s things that you think is common knowledge share them too, because they’re probably not common knowledge. And I mean, just like you’re saying, we do so many things that we don’t even think about, oh, I’ve been doing it that way for 20 years, but you get a new guy in the shop. And they’re watching you do something in your life. Where’d you come up with that? I’ve never seen that before. Why I’ve been doing this my whole life. I don’t even know where I learned this.
David Currie:
I know. Right.
Trent Manning:
Yep. So yeah, definitely share those ideas.
David Currie:
Yeah. Yeah. I, I’m a big proponent of that kind of stuff. And it’s not, self-deprecating like every once in a while on a Friday, I’ll do FYI Friday tweets like for your information and not kind of thing. It’s just, I’ve come across up and this is my resolve to it. You know, maybe if you come across this and this helps you out. Great. Because that’s, again, going back to that kind of stuff is that we’re all in this, this big, this big game together. And if we can help each other out little things like that, it’s I think it’s it’s golden.
Trent Manning:
Oh yeah, for sure. That’s that’s why we’re here. And real turf tax is on the air. That’s what we’re doing. Trying to help technicians.
David Currie:
And Kylie’s little trick about the I know some other, somebody else commented about this or a little super glue drink, the baking soda at all.
Trent Manning:
Yup. Yup.
David Currie:
I was up at my brother-in-law’s cottage. I don’t know if you guys call them cottages camps. I don’t know.
Trent Manning:
Yeah.
David Currie:
And we’re cutting wood the other weekend to get ready for winter. And he dropped his chainsaw and cracked the the oil reservoir. And so it’s, it’s leaking as he’s cutting, it’s leaking oil all over Right. And I just said, I’m going to try something and sure enough, I went into the cottage and rambled through their pantry and found spade soda and, you know, found some, super-close and I know there was one other component that she advised you to, or suggested to use. I couldn’t remember, but just out of that, it held off long enough for us to get our wood done. unbelievable. It was unbelievable. I cleaned out, I had, he had carb cleaner there. I cleaned everything up. did it a little bit. And golf this thing up with this baking soda and a crazy glue compound. It worked fantastic.
Trent Manning:
awesome. That’s so good.
David Currie:
I would’ve never thought of that beforehand.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. That was the first time I heard it. And speaking of first time and hearing stuff, I just heard today in the WhatsApp group about the fluid fam, that what it was called,
David Currie:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
you using that?
David Currie:
No I don’t, but I know there’s a few guys that do I think Kevin hamburger is one of the guys that does use it and he uses it as a quite possibly like an anti rust on machines. When new stuff comes in, going to our winter season before he stores it. He sprays it down. I think it was fluid-filled. I could be wrong, but I have heard that? name before and I was like, that’s what that stuff is.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. I’d never even heard the name, but there were several guys in the group saying, oh yeah, I’ve been using that for years. And they were talking about, I think it was Jerry. And I asked the question about what you do for bed bars,
David Currie:
Yes. Yeah. That’s what it was. That’s right. Yeah. And then I think one gentlemen, piped up and talked about fluid film. And then who was it? Was Chad Bruner. Is that how you say his last name? Ron. Okay. Yeah, Excellent guy met him down at the GIS a couple of years ago. And he mentioned about fluid film and then a bunch of other guys chimed in and said, yeah, they’ve been that’s great stuff. And I’m I’m I, again, it’s not something I ever thought to change. I’ve always you know, an anti-seize guy a little bit on threads and then a little bit on the bar, like, especially stuff that you’re not breaking the knife off of a lot, like fairway units like that. But for your high high-frequency grindstone I’d always just put a little bit on the screws and things like that just basically kept it dry, but I think there’s fluids. So it would be the right. thing for that
Trent Manning:
Yeah. I’m definitely going to invest in some and try it out. And like you’re saying, especially on fairway mowers, I mean, we changed greens and powers a knife so often I don’t think it matters what you put on there
David Currie:
No,
Trent Manning:
in the summertime. It’s almost a weekly, we’re changing knives,
David Currie:
Exactly.
Trent Manning:
top dressing every week and yeah. It’s is fun times.
David Currie:
Yeah, absolutely love
Trent Manning:
Anything else you want to share with.
David Currie:
No, I, you know why it’s just, again, I think a kind of parlaying back to a boat. What we like about our job. I think the big thing is to just creating a good culture within your team. You know, I get looked at sometimes just because I get zoned in, on a job and I might have a resting bitch face, if you will. will like, are you, are you mad? I’m like, oh man, I’m just into something. And they, I guess some of the younger kids that intimidates them, sometimes they don’t want to always bring those little incidentals to you, you know, like the line trimmer doesn’t work or that kind of thing. And you find it later. But just creating uh, creating a good culture within your crew make sure everybody’s having fun and keep those lines of communication over because it’s going to make their job better. It’s going to make it easier on you because they’re going to come to you with stuff, know? And and and, they’re, they’re going to tell you about those little incidentals instead of parking it. And if they know about it, cause sometimes they parked stopped for put it away and don’t realize I think keeping those lines of communication open are good because Yeah. like then they’ll start like I don’t know about a lot of crews, but we just started employing WhatsApp uh, for, for our crew. So like literally I can count that number of days on my hand that I actually saw somebody with a radio on her hip everybody’s got phones and it’s an instant way of communicating to the crew. And I go over some of the Badger between these guys and it’s unbelievable how efficient it’s made them because it’s like, oh, I forgot a blower. I forgot a rate. Could you so-and-so bring it to me and told them it’s it’s right there. And there. you know, and they’re talking quick and it’s, it’s, it’s really, it’s been a game changer, I think on far as that is concerned. Yeah. and, and again, that goes back to the culture too. Just keeping it light, keeping it professional, make sure, you know, you can’t be everybody’s buddy, but. They shouldn’t be afraid to come and talk to you about something.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, and I think that’s a culture that we’re still in the process of changing. And I think it’s a really valuable change. And I know a lot of the older generation probably needs to work on that more than the younger generation,
David Currie:
yeah,
Trent Manning:
but it all, it all depends on the person too.
David Currie:
absolutely. A hundred percent. And it’s gotta be unanimous through the whole group because if one guy is like not a do, as I say, not as I do kind of person, it’s kinda hard to perpetuate that kind of culture when they’re not really the most easiest person to talk to, if you will, you know, or, or, or, always yelling or, you know, intimidated before. Praise kind of person,
Trent Manning:
Um,
David Currie:
like not, you know, there’s, especially, I can’t categorize them as millennials, but there’s, you have to be a good judge of character. And I’ve always, I’ve been coined as having a good judge of character and you learn fast that the ones that can, you can put the work too, and they don’t need the constant praise, but there is a lot of them and they’re doing, you know, probably manual labor for the first time in their lives. You gotta, gotta give them a pat on the back and it’s like, thanks, man. I appreciate you, you know, thanks for doing what you’re doing. I know it seems like a thankless job, but we appreciate it.
Trent Manning:
right. Then it has to, it has to be done. Somebody is going to be doing it.
David Currie:
Yeah, absolutely.
Trent Manning:
Um, we just recently had an employee. He’s been with us for a long time. And he was pretty much our dedicated T and tie-in guy. And he was, he’s an older gentleman, pretty grumpy all the time. Not, not in the best of moods and we’d tried to work with him and work with him. So we had a janitor position come up and he was interested in this janitor position and we gave it to him and he is a totally different person. He’s in a good mood. He’s joking. He’s cutting up. He does. I mean, he does an excellent job, the, the shop and the restroom’s out on the course and all our facilities that he’s in charge of keeping tidy as better than it’s ever been. I mean, he’s Clinton, plain and trashcan lids. I see him cleaning the sink, you know, in the shop. And I don’t know, it’s just, I mean, he’s found his niche, so if you’re not happy, you know, doing what you’re doing, find something else.
David Currie:
absolutely. Yeah, A hundred percent. yeah, It’s so true. It’s also given them a sense of ownership over certain jobs do. Right.
Trent Manning:
yeah, yeah.
David Currie:
their whole mind, like this project or whatever it is. That’s your baby, that, you know, it’s only gonna flourish if you do well. So that’s, that’s, that’s good.
Trent Manning:
No, I mean, it has been, it’s been awesome seeing, seeing that transition. And then I was thinking about it. If I had the Mo teas every day and get off, take out the T markers, Mo the T for the team markers back, I’d probably be pretty grumpy too.
David Currie:
Yeah, exactly. And then there’s some guys that that’s their dream job, you know the reason they’re retired and they’re loving it, they get the golf, something like that park, you know, and that, and they’re happy with it, but yeah, that’s all. That’s actually how I got a one gentleman in the shop for a few years with me. He was, he was a, an old retire mill rights. So this guy could make something appear out of nowhere with just machining skills and everything else, you Anyway, long story short, he retired now. He leaves the gardeners and Italian gentlemen. So he was very meticulous. And he was working with the horticultural center club for a few years and, and uh, that was starting to get troublesome on his knees and things like Axe, always standing and kneeling down the bed, garden beds and stuff. And there was whisper of me needing help. And so he, every once in a while he’d say something, oh, I’d be at the end of the day, trying to collect things, sweeping the floor looks like you need somebody to help you out there with that kind of stuff. And it just kind of went over my ball that a few times, right. And then I finally said, Denato, are you serious about this? Do you want to come in and help me out? And it was glorious for about three years. I had them in the shop with me and it was great and never happier. He was there before I was every day and getting things ready and it gets you smiling. And he loved it. He’s always showed his gratitude because what he was doing, even though he liked gardening and that kind of stuff, it just wasn’t his thing. And it’s so true. It was just, he was, it was excellent how while I did there. it was, it was different guy.
Trent Manning:
That’s awesome.
David Currie:
Yeah. That’s great.
Trent Manning:
Tell the listeners how they can get.
David Currie:
I guess just to keep it simple, you can find me on uh, on Twitter gets, you know, once you got a question or you want to reach out, get more personal information or email, you can just DM me on Twitter and at Dave Curry, 44. So uppercase day, David D a V. Uppercase C for Curry, C U R R I E four, four and a we’ll. We’ll get. in touch through that.
Trent Manning:
Alright, that sounds great. Thank you so much, David, for coming on. I really enjoyed this. It’s been great.
David Currie:
Awesome. Thanks for having me try and appreciate it. Look forward to hearing some more stuff to.
Trent Manning:
Hope you enjoy hearing from David. I think you made an important point. There’s always a Morrow. Sometimes we don’t have to put as much on our plate. As we feel like we need to. Sometimes I can wait. And if it can. Let it wait till tomorrow. Oh, God, hold me one time. While I do something today you can put off till tomorrow. And I’m guilty. I don’t always live by that motto. But something to think about. The other thing I think is important for the M to create a culture where the crew can report issues. I think it’s a big thing in our industry. Or a lot of the crew guys. And gals might not want to report problems because they’re. Afraid that they’ll get in trouble or, you know, Whatever. Mine happened to. And I think it helps to just make a good rapport with. The crew. You know, talk about other personal life. See what they’re into. Kind of let it, let them know that you care about them. And I think that goes a long way. And the employee’s eyes. And I think it makes it easier for them to come talk to you. Until next week. See you. Bye. thank you so much for listening to the real turf techs podcast. I hope you learned something today. Don’t forget to subscribe. If you have any topics you’d like to discuss, or you’d like to be a guest, find us on Twitter at real turf techs.