Seeking Climber & Groundie, P/T. Olympia WA

Cory, I did some quick math, my accountant says its basically 270 working days here in north america, into $700k thats about $2600 a day in revenue. for a crew of four with gear and machinery I would think thats about $500 per worker, based on a 10 hour day (8 site hours plus driving and shop time) thats about $50 an hour, fair price for an experienced, skilled tradesman. The remainder of funds would go to depreciation of machinery, operating and repair costs, fuel etc.

To me this business model is one that seperates yourself from the el cheapo companies, they can run each other in to the ground while the skilled crew charges good money for quality work. Kind of like Hyundai, Ford, GM, Toyota and Honda all competing for the middle of the road market while Ferrari (Jaguar, Rolls Royce, Bugatti, Lamborghini etc) builds way fewer cars and doesnt even attempt to compete on price for a four wheeled motorized people mover.
 
$50/ hr is low, imo, for guys with machinery. And I was figuring 11 months per year, the remaining 4 wks being being vacation, holiday, sickness, bad weather. So bottom line, if we are talking $2500 per day for 4 men, that makes sense. @ $750k/ yr, they aren't missing many days, nor the daily quota.
 
$2500 per day for 8 hours on site is more like $78 per man hour chargeout rate for a 4 man crew with machinery. $50 per hour in my basic scheme is the actual pay rate to the crew member(s). The 3 man crews I know locally with a bucket truck, chipper and sometimes a support truck are normally about $250/hr but I would think their days are rarely 8 straight hours on a single site.
 
Yup, $250/hr. Rear mount bucket, Kubota artic loader, 20 yd chip truck, 18" morbark, 78hp and 50hp stumpers, 3 good climbers, mason long-body support truck...we're not expensive but feel fortunate to be busy in this crazy economy.
 
cory said:
$700K with a 4 man crew? That's pretty huge numbers, imo. Thats like $3100+ every day. Hard to believe, but if that is accurate, that must be a heckuva tree crew working with a kick ass salesman.
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No, it is not hard to believe.
Sounds like he is doing good.
Not sure if that is daily but a good outfit with 10 guys can do 4k to 5k a day or I would not have a job.
 
Paul B said:
$2500 per day for 8 hours on site is more like $78 per man hour chargeout rate for a 4 man crew with machinery. $50 per hour in my basic scheme is the actual pay rate to the crew member(s). The 3 man crews I know locally with a bucket truck, chipper and sometimes a support truck are normally about $250/hr but I would think their days are rarely 8 straight hours on a single site.
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4 men all day is about $3200, and all the stuff with it at that rate.
 
So which is it Jeff? 10 guys charging 4-5K or 4 guys charging $3200? The numbers I put up were just based on the breakdown of a $700k annual gross posted by another member.

jefflovstrom@sb said:
..Not sure if that is daily but a good outfit with 10 guys can do 4k to 5k a day...
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jefflovstrom@sb said:
4 men all day is about $3200, and all the stuff with it at that rate.
Click to expand...
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #33
In a nutshell, showing up with work clothes, all else provided, covered as an employee (I pay w/c, unemployment, 7.5% SS, payroll processing costs, etc), I'd figure $25+/- per hour. I think it works out to about $50k gross/ year if it were full time hours.

What do you all think?
 
There ya go. Got all the info needed now. Makes it much easier to refer a guy if one has key info.;)
 
Sean, I'm just wondering why you want to spend every waking moment (and undoubtedly plenty of moments when you'd rather be sleeping :)) working?

'Cause that's what you're contemplating here. The advantages of the full time gov't job must have appealed to you when you took the position. Why flush some of the best parts of that away by running a full time business of your own at the same time?
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #37
Pay some bills.

If we have kids, they're expensive.

Maintain/ build a client base to make a better turnkey marketable biz if I can make enough at State Parks. Its not like the FS pay is reputed to be. State is broke at present, so they aren't handing out any raises. We just got 5.3 hours of unpaid time off per month, effectively 3% salary cut. Last budget biennium there were unpaid furlough days. Plan B is good to keep, and I can use the extra dollars.

B, at a later time by PM I'd be interested to pick your brain about the way the FS classifies some of the equivalent positions, and compensates for them. My crew boss says that they paid less before he got some comparisons from other agencies. Its overall less work than day to day residential work, but much more dangerous, basically nothing but hazard trees.
 
Burnham said:
Sean, I'm just wondering why you want to spend every waking moment (and undoubtedly plenty of moments when you'd rather be sleeping :)) working?

'Cause that's what you're contemplating here. The advantages of the full time gov't job must have appealed to you when you took the position. Why flush some of the best parts of that away by running a full time business of your own at the same time?
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:/:;):lol:

kids aren't that expensive...especailly when your health care is paid by your employer.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #40
Burnham said:
Sean, I'm just wondering why you want to spend every waking moment (and undoubtedly plenty of moments when you'd rather be sleeping :)) working?

'Cause that's what you're contemplating here. The advantages of the full time gov't job must have appealed to you when you took the position. Why flush some of the best parts of that away by running a full time business of your own at the same time?
Click to expand...

Further,

Hopefully I'm not going to be having 2 full-time jobs.

A funny thing about the state is if there are lay-offs, the more senior person can bump a more junior person out of their job if the senior employee is trainable in the new job, according to the job description. Someone how can be trained to be on the Arbor Crew can bump me out of my job in about 1 second. I'd be able to bump someone else that started after me, if their position was being retained.

Job security, hah.

How's that for a domino effect of efficiency?
 
Arranged by the union, no doubt.

I know what you mean, Sean. I've had the most unpleasant experiences of having my federal job abolished for lack of funding, twice.
 
They will just give you a new title Sean, very few get laid off in Oregon at least. They will say they laid off so many but in reality, very few draw unemployment. Now they might make you take days off here and there but then you are allowed to use your ETO so how big a difference does that make:dur: I wish it was legal for me to balance my books the way states do....
 
If you are honest, smart and work hard for someone else eight hours every day, someday you might get to be the boss or owner. And then work 12 hours a day.
 
i found a good climber ,he winds up making 200 a day wage... 25 an hour, plus tax and comp came out to a touch over 38 dollars and hour.........im having to teach him the terms and other things, but he can eat up removals and basic trims, and is the ideal employee, called me out for no hard hat, makes my clean up guys pull up their pants,brings saws and gear daily, always ready to go, he even can handle bids but his spelling needs help

i bonus him if a 2 man crew does a 3 man crews work in a day, and if a day and some change job is done in a day i bonus..

he's happy i treat him as a man, give him his work order and tools required, and meet up onsite a few hours later with the chip truck, so he can operate as his own crew, from start to finish, and not have a boss lurking around trying to rush everything
 
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