Employee Spotlight – Joe Magee

Joe Magee, Lead Hand – Swift Current, 15 years

Joe Magee is the Lead Hand in the Swift Current branch and has worked with Redhead Equipment for over 15 years.  We asked him what a regular day at work is like and he said “it can be totally different day to day, one day you come in and it’s pretty quiet and the next day I could have 15 messages waiting for me on my phone.”  The biggest challenge of his job is meeting customers’ expectations and keeping up with demands with changing times: “It’s different now with big farms than it used to be with family run farms. Everything revolves around business schedules, there are a lot bigger farms out here in this area now, from what used to be five thousand acres, now are farming one hundred forty thousand acres.”

When asked about the branch, Joe said it has a bunch of good people and a lot of longevity: “Some of the people here have been around for 20-30 years, and quite a few have been here longer than 15 years and we’ve had fun working here.”

Joe credits our customers with the longevity of the company, along with the company atmosphere as a whole, “we have an excellent customer base, I can’t even count how many of them have been around since I started in 2002, and they’re still buying equipment from us, and have handed it down from fathers to kids and so on and they’re still running red.” “We’re on a first name basis with our customers, it’s almost like family, and they come through the door and come right into your office. You know them by their face and name and they’ll ask about the kids, hockey and school and anything else going on, its really great,” he adds.

The reason Joe has worked with Redhead Equipment so long is due to the relationships he’s built with colleagues and customers. “When you like the people you work with, it makes work not really feel like work,” he explained.  He also said the people are the most interesting thing about working at Redhead Equipment.

Joe spoke to us about one of his greatest accomplishments professionally and he said he started his career at SIAST and worked his way through trade school, getting his journeyman’s and then started work experience sweeping floors in the shop. “Working my way through as a Shop Tech to a Road Tech, to Lead Hand and maybe down the road to a Shop Foreman position, there is always opportunity to grow.”  Joe also mentioned some advice for anyone starting a career at Redhead Equipment, is to “listen to your peers, and work hard. There is more knowledge on any shop floor, behind any counter, in anyone of our buildings than you will ever find in any book or tech school, “and we couldn’t agree more.

Quick Questions:

Can you think of a time when you have done ‘Whatever It Takes’ for a customer?

We left the shop late in the evening about 10 pm to go out to a customer’s place out at one of the nearby colonies, the combine wasn’t working and the engine wouldn’t run. We got it fixed up and running and he got back to work in the field around 2:30 am, when I got back to my truck the seats were full of fresh vegetables and buns just as a thank you.

What do you find yourself doing in an hour of free time?

Usually checking out toys, quads, dirt bikes, sleds.

Do you have a favorite place to be?

I have a cabin up north, lots of snowmobiling and fishing.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a pilot.