Heavy equipment operators like Corey Straga are savants of the soil.
It’s 1930, and six ironworkers sit on a girder about 1,000 feet above the Manhattan streets and eat lunch. It’s an iconic photo meant to symbolize the skill, bravery, and dedication of the men who built one of the world’s most enduring and famous structures – the Empire State Building.
The workers on the ground at the Empire State Building site didn’t get the publicity granted to the high-flying girder walkers. The heavy equipment operators who cleared the site between 33rd and 34th streets on Fifth Avenue and anchored all 102 floors to the ground proved critical to the skyscraper's safety, stability, legacy, and longevity.
For most people unfamiliar with construction, from homes to stores to office buildings, those large pieces of heavy equipment are simply the opening act to the main event of putting up the building.
“People don’t realize that clearing the land, preparing it for the building’s foundation, and creating the proper grade and drainage are as important to construction as the building itself,” says Atlanta-based general contractor Trey Langford. “I’ve been at jobs where contractors tried to save money on-site preparation, and after the office complex was completed, employees there complained of constant flooding even after a light rain, collapsing asphalt in the parking lot and a parking garage that settled so much after only a year that huge cracks in the concrete walls developed.”
Why is site preparation – moving dirt – so important? Langford points to several key reasons, including clearing the land, giving construction workers full access to the site, and shaping the land to match the survey. In addition, these heavy equipment operators, or “dirt whisperers,” complete foundational tasks such as setting out corner benchmarks, surveying ground and top levels, excavating to the approved depth, backfilling as needed, constructing wells and interconnecting trenches, making boundaries of the building, and constructing protection embankments and drains.
For these “dirt whisperers,” their tools are much larger than hammers, saws, nail guns, wrenches, and pliers. Their tools often weigh over 200,000 pounds, with a height of more than 15 feet and a length of over 35 feet, with almost 1,000 horsepower at their disposal. The irony of watching these dirt whisperers is that even while working with such powerful equipment with claws, buckets, and forks, these defenders of the dirt can perform extremely delicate earth-moving operations that require the deft hand and sharp eyes of a surgeon.
The dirt devil
Corey Straga is a 36-year-old South Jersey heavy equipment operator who owns Big Dog Enterprises LLC. During his career as a heavy equipment operator and small business owner, he’s demolished an old swim club, re-graded the entire estate for a multi-million home, repaired a dam that broke during a flood, sculpted several high school athletic fields, and even done beach replenishment in Delaware after Hurricane Sandy.
One of his most challenging projects was creating a 50-acre paintball field out of land covered with trees, scrub brush, and wild grass in Franklin Township, South Jersey, about 20 miles southwest of Philadelphia.
For Corey, sculpting paintball fields from pristine land is the “Super Bowl” for a dirt whisperer.
“Molding land untouched by human hands is the ultimate challenge for a heavy equipment operator,” says California-based civil engineer Rich Petry. “The operator has to get that raw land up to grade and drain the water out of the ground, so the area can be rolled and stay graded to the survey specs for decades.”
Petry also describes the skill involved in crafting a detention pond on a site. Detention ponds serve as important flood control features. They are usually dry except during or after rain or snowmelt. Their purpose is to slow down water flow and hold it for a short time, such as 24 hours. Urban areas rely on these structures to reduce peak runoff rates associated with storms, decreasing flood damage.
The detention pond that Corey built requires precise grading and careful sloping so that water flows properly. Technology using lasers to grade a site has made the job easier for most operators. After years of practice and learning, Corey can often grade an entire construction site within millimeters (approximately four-hundredths of an inch) without using a laser.
In addition, Corey craned, lifted, and positioned more than 30 sea containers on the site to create a 12,000-square-foot castle that stands 28 feet high. The 50-acre park is slated to have 15 playing fields capable of accommodating a variety of game styles. The castle is the main attraction, but the facility features dozens of wood forts in addition to a clubhouse and pro shop built by hand from lumber harvested at the property.
Working in concert with the paintball field owner and the engineer, Corey used all of the tools at his disposal, from a bulldozer to an excavator and a roller to a skid loader.
“It was a challenge to prepare the paintball site from virgin land,” admits Corey. “For people like me, water is the enemy. We use the machinery people see squeezing water out of the site, compacting good topsoil, creating swales and grade to let rainwater runoff into the detention pond and enable these fields to dry out quickly after any rain.”
For Corey Straga, that’s something he’s been doing his whole life.
Born To Run - Machines
When he was five years old, playing in his sandbox, Corey Straga surrounded himself with his favorite toys, which, in his case, were toy backhoes, bulldozers, and wheel excavators. From the time the sun rises until it drops below the lake horizon where he lives, Corey Straga plays in the dirt and sand, moving soil around, building mounds, leveling hills, and even creating swales to channel water.
“Since he was a little boy,” begins his mother, Linda, a retired guidance counselor, “Corey has always loved playing in the dirt with earth-moving toys, and then as he got older, he learned to use the actual machines.”
When Corey was 14, a neighbor started training him to use heavy equipment like dozers, backhoes, excavators, and graders. Like a stunt pilot having total command of the plane, Corey could soon handle the bucket of a backhoe like a pro.
“It wasn’t long after that Corey actually was grading land for people even before he had a license to drive a car,” chuckles his mother, Linda. “He was in great demand in our area.”
Corey took on projects in earth moving in the next decade that only adults with years of experience with this heavy equipment would attempt. During high school, he dug wells, regraded residential properties, dug swales to control water flow and limit flooding at homes and businesses, and even worked on major construction sites, carving retention ponds from the earth.
In late 2021 and early 2022, Corey Straga completed an eight-week project in Cape May, New Jersey. The beach replenishment project was completed in time for the 100,000 summer vacationers to enjoy an expanded beach area.
Making the grade
“Plenty of people claim they can operate heavy machinery on a job site,” says Trey Langford. “But doing it well takes a person with a special kind of skill. I’ve seen some masters pick up a quarter with an excavator.”
Heavy equipment operator schools continue to grow in popularity as people look to “outsource-proof” their jobs. As local environmental regulations become more demanding, “you need pros running that equipment for you,” admits civil engineer Rich Petry. “You can have a building completed per local specs and still not get a certificate of occupancy if the site itself isn’t on grade, the retention or detention pond isn’t perfect, and the site doesn’t match the survey.”
“There is no parcel of land anywhere that is immediately ready to build on,” says Corey. “You have to level up the land or slope for construction to build. Many factors go into grading the land of a given area, such as the quality and type of the soil, erosion control, the density of the property, and more.”
At 36, Corey has already been living his dream. His dream does not include a climate-controlled office with an espresso machine and a copier that can collate and staple. Corey’s vision is a nightmare for most people. Bitter cold, oppressive humidity, mud and dirt flying everywhere, diesel fumes, and heavy equipment that often has a mind of its own.
But for this “dirt whisperer,” dozers, dump trucks, backhoes, excavators, and wheel loaders are his tools of choice for an activity he has loved and excelled at since he was a child – transforming dirt into a work of art.
It’s 1930, and six ironworkers sit on a girder about 1,000 feet above the Manhattan streets and eat lunch. It’s an iconic photo meant to symbolize the skill, bravery, and dedication of the men who built one of the world’s most enduring and famous structures – the Empire State Building.
The workers on the ground at the Empire State Building site didn’t get the publicity granted to the high-flying girder walkers. The heavy equipment operators who cleared the site between 33rd and 34th streets on Fifth Avenue and anchored all 102 floors to the ground proved critical to the skyscraper's safety, stability, legacy, and longevity.
For most people unfamiliar with construction, from homes to stores to office buildings, those large pieces of heavy equipment are simply the opening act to the main event of putting up the building.
“People don’t realize that clearing the land, preparing it for the building’s foundation, and creating the proper grade and drainage are as important to construction as the building itself,” says Atlanta-based general contractor Trey Langford. “I’ve been at jobs where contractors tried to save money on-site preparation, and after the office complex was completed, employees there complained of constant flooding even after a light rain, collapsing asphalt in the parking lot and a parking garage that settled so much after only a year that huge cracks in the concrete walls developed.”
Why is site preparation – moving dirt – so important? Langford points to several key reasons, including clearing the land, giving construction workers full access to the site, and shaping the land to match the survey. In addition, these heavy equipment operators, or “dirt whisperers,” complete foundational tasks such as setting out corner benchmarks, surveying ground and top levels, excavating to the approved depth, backfilling as needed, constructing wells and interconnecting trenches, making boundaries of the building, and constructing protection embankments and drains.
The dirt devil
Corey Straga is a 36-year-old South Jersey heavy equipment operator who owns Big Dog Enterprises LLC. During his career as a heavy equipment operator and small business owner, he’s demolished an old swim club, re-graded the entire estate for a multi-million home, repaired a dam that broke during a flood, sculpted several high school athletic fields, and even done beach replenishment in Delaware after Hurricane Sandy.
One of his most challenging projects was creating a 50-acre paintball field out of land covered with trees, scrub brush, and wild grass in Franklin Township, South Jersey, about 20 miles southwest of Philadelphia. For Corey, sculpting paintball fields from pristine land is the “Super Bowl” for a dirt whisperer.
“Molding land untouched by human hands is the ultimate challenge for a heavy equipment operator,” says California-based civil engineer Rich Petry. “The operator has to get that raw land up to grade and drain the water out of the ground, so the area can be rolled and stay graded to the survey specs for decades.”
Petry also describes the skill involved in crafting a detention pond on a site. Detention ponds serve as important flood control features. They are usually dry except during or after rain or snowmelt. Their purpose is to slow down water flow and hold it for a short time, such as 24 hours. Urban areas rely on these structures to reduce peak runoff rates associated with storms, decreasing flood damage.
The detention pond that Corey built requires precise grading and careful sloping so that water flows properly. Technology using lasers to grade a site has made the job easier for most operators. After years of practice and learning, Corey can often grade an entire construction site within millimeters (approximately four-hundredths of an inch) without using a laser.
In addition, Corey craned, lifted, and positioned more than 30 sea containers on the site to create a 12,000-square-foot castle that stands 28 feet high. The 50-acre park is slated to have 15 playing fields capable of accommodating a variety of game styles. The castle is the main attraction, but the facility features dozens of wood forts in addition to a clubhouse and pro shop built by hand from lumber harvested at the property. Working in concert with the paintball field owner and the engineer, Corey used all of the tools at his disposal, from a bulldozer to an excavator and a roller to a skid loader.
“It was a challenge to prepare the paintball site from virgin land,” admits Corey. “For people like me, water is the enemy. We use the machinery people see squeezing water out of the site, compacting good topsoil, creating swales and grade to let rainwater runoff into the detention pond and enable these fields to dry out quickly after any rain.”
For Corey Straga, that’s something he’s been doing his whole life.
Born To Run - Machines
When he was five years old, playing in his sandbox, Corey Straga surrounded himself with his favorite toys, which, in his case, were toy backhoes, bulldozers, and wheel excavators. From the time the sun rises until it drops below the lake horizon where he lives, Corey Straga plays in the dirt and sand, moving soil around, building mounds, leveling hills, and even creating swales to channel water.
“Since he was a little boy,” begins his mother, Linda, a retired guidance counselor, “Corey has always loved playing in the dirt with earth-moving toys, and then as he got older, he learned to use the actual machines.”
When Corey was 14, a neighbor started training him to use heavy equipment like dozers, backhoes, excavators, and graders. Like a stunt pilot having total command of the plane, Corey could soon handle the bucket of a backhoe like a pro.
“It wasn’t long after that Corey actually was grading land for people even before he had a license to drive a car,” chuckles his mother, Linda. “He was in great demand in our area.”
Corey took on projects in earth moving in the next decade that only adults with years of experience with this heavy equipment would attempt. During high school, he dug wells, regraded residential properties, dug swales to control water flow and limit flooding at homes and businesses, and even worked on major construction sites, carving retention ponds from the earth.
In late 2021 and early 2022, Corey Straga completed an eight-week project in Cape May, New Jersey. The beach replenishment project was completed in time for the 100,000 summer vacationers to enjoy an expanded beach area.
Making the grade
“Plenty of people claim they can operate heavy machinery on a job site,” says Trey Langford. “But doing it well takes a person with a special kind of skill. I’ve seen some masters pick up a quarter with an excavator.”
Heavy equipment operator schools continue to grow in popularity as people look to “outsource-proof” their jobs. As local environmental regulations become more demanding, “you need pros running that equipment for you,” admits civil engineer Rich Petry. “You can have a building completed per local specs and still not get a certificate of occupancy if the site itself isn’t on grade, the retention or detention pond isn’t perfect, and the site doesn’t match the survey.”
“There is no parcel of land anywhere that is immediately ready to build on,” says Corey. “You have to level up the land or slope for construction to build. Many factors go into grading the land of a given area, such as the quality and type of the soil, erosion control, the density of the property, and more.”
At 36, Corey has already been living his dream. His dream does not include a climate-controlled office with an espresso machine and a copier that can collate and staple. Corey’s vision is a nightmare for most people. Bitter cold, oppressive humidity, mud and dirt flying everywhere, diesel fumes, and heavy equipment that often has a mind of its own.
But for this “dirt whisperer,” dozers, dump trucks, backhoes, excavators, and wheel loaders are his tools of choice for an activity he has loved and excelled at since he was a child – transforming dirt into a work of art.
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