Anna McGuirk is a second-year agricultural mechanic apprentice at Hutchinson Pearce, repairing John Deere machinery. She and service manager Matt Pike talk through her daily work and what it takes to start in the field.
I'm Anna McGuirk. I work for Hutchinson Pearce as a second year ag mechanic.
I'm Matt Pike, I'm the service manager here at Hutcheon and Pierce in Wagga.
I work on John Deere machinery repairing and servicing them. A typical day for me would be coming into the workshop, helping the technician load up the ute and head out to the farm. We'd have a chat to the farmer, their machines doing, repair the machine and then head back to the workshop to unload the heat. I've always grown up on a farm helping my parents service and repair their own machines. So I've always had an interest in mechanics. I saw a John Deere ad on TV and thought that they'd be a really good brand to work for. With their machines being so advanced, I'd get to learn all the new technology.
Enna makes a good apprentice because she's very thorough. She listens.
They give me a lot more responsibility now as a second year apprentice compared to a first year. They're giving me bigger jobs, letting me work by myself and have a first year underneath me. They give me a hand. I'm looking forward to being a qualified technician as I have a lot more responsibility and trust being able to go out and repair a farmer's machine myself.
An apprenticeship with John Deere from start to finish. There's an interview process they have to go through all through tafe. Their training, it's all John Deere based, so they're upskilled on the product. When they come out of their time, we can just send them straight out into the field or into the workshop and know that they're going to do a good job.
The role of a technician is quite important to the industry. Being able to find and repair a fault in a tractor and get the farmer going again, making his living.
You could just service machines all the way up to being a diagnostic tech and then you can work your way up into management. There's so many opportunities. Put your head down and study hard. So when you come out of your fourth year, you're straight in and you're working on all the big gear or little gear, whatever takes your fancy. The right is out there.
My advice to someone considering being a technician is to give it a go. There's so much support and like a large range of machinery to work on, so just give it a go.
