A Brief History of the Driver Skills and Safety Training Event (aka Snowplow Roadeo) for Berkshire County
I know that I am leaving something out of this history and if anyone has more information, I would love to add it to this story as an addendum. What I have been told is that the Driver Skills and Training event began as a Snowplow Roadeo when a group of people from Berkshire County realized that snowplow driver training was needed. The group also realized that a little friendly competition might help get people involved and would also allow the winners to have bragging rights for the year.
Chris Ahmadjian from the Baystate Roads Program doesn’t remember exactly how or when the rallies started, but he does remember attending his first event – in 1987 - at the Dalton VFW at this event Allstates Asphalt helped by supplying all of the cones for the event. In the 1990’s the seven County Highway associations purchased the current trailer so that all of the events would have the required cones, barrels and barricades to run the events.
Jeff Sienna from MIIA (Massachusetts Inter-local Insurance Agency) was also involved at this time. Both immediately saw the value of the rallies and agreed to partner as event sponsors in an effort to spread the concept across the state. Early events were held in Plymouth County, Worcester County, Berkshire County and Essex County. The events were hosted by County Highway Associations, but relied heavily on Baystate Roads and MIIA to organize, set up, and judge the events.
Over the next few years, the involvement in the event with the Highway Superintendents Association fell because of a lack of interest with the members and the event was stopped until 2006 when Chris Bouchard was asked if he would get the event up and running again by Tim Ledogar, Dave Capelle and Frank Cheverie from the MHA Snowplow Roadeo committee, and in 2007 BCHSA held the event again at the Annual Equipment Show in Dalton at the VFW grounds with the help of Tim. After the first year of restarting the event I realized to hold the event the same day as the equipment show would prove to be challenging. So with the support of the Board of Directors I changed the day and location of the event, which has had great success. We now hold the event the middle of July each year and at the Hinsdale Fire House which with the central location and date it has worked out successfully.
Baystate Roads begun to take a lesser role with the Association and we have become self-sufficient. Baystate Roads continues to support the events, but it is the highway association volunteers - who organize, set up, and judge the events and by standardizing the rules for all rallies, the size and number of events have grown - that make them a success every year. The name was changed from Snowplow Roadeo to Driver Skills and Safety Training to more clearly convey the importance of the event and to better describe its purpose and goal.
I am also lucky enough to also be one of the co-chairs to MHA Driver Skills and Safety training. So it has been nice to watch the first and second place teams go to the MHA finals to compete with the winners of that event going on to the APWA New England finals. Tim’s enthusiasm toward safety and training is immediately apparent and his energy and ability to organize were instrumental in launching the events to new levels. When we talked this past winter about where we would like to see the event go we wanted the New England final winners to go to the National finals and we talked to the APWA New England chapter and could not get a commitment from them and so we asked the MHA to commit education funds toward this endeavor and at that time we were going to take the previous year’s winners because the national event falls at the same time as the MHA equipment show and Driver Skills and Safety Training event. As we started the year we thought with some rescheduling of events and asking for more funds we would also take this year’s winner too.
I am also proud of the fact that since restarting this event in the county your enthusiasm has helped me continue to grow the event. In the past three years a team from Berkshire County has finished in the top three every year at the MHA finals! This year I was extremely fortunate to travel with the winning teams to the Western Snow and Ice Conference and National Finals in Loveland, Colorado. I could not be more proud of the fact that the Berkshire County teams finished in the top three this year but were the first and second place teams and the first place team represented us and the MHA in Colorado. GREAT JOB!!!
Over the winter, I will be working to take this event to an even higher level, with possibly more events and I will need your help to accomplish that task. If you would like to help, send me an email and we will put you to work. There is much to be done.
One final thought. This event started small, but has grown, and quite clearly demonstrated to both public works employees and citizens that DPW and Highway Department employees are well-trained professionals, who use sophisticated equipment to accomplish difficult tasks on a daily basis. The events demonstrate that we are an important part of every municipal emergency services group and every community. Be proud of this fact!
Thank you all for your support and help!
Christopher J. Bouchard -Chair
BCHSA Driver Skills and Training Committee