A lifetime of tinkering earns Richard mechanic award

On May 12, Zach Richard, a mechanic for Admiral Transport Corporation in Worland, won the 2023 Mechanic of the Year award at the Wyoming Truckers Association's Annual Convention in Sheridan.

When asked if he was surprised by the award, Richard said, "A little. My wife isn't very good at keeping secrets."

Richard said that before the convention, Brian Mathews took him along on the errand of delivering vehicles. He said, "Brian was asking a whole bunch of questions that led me to believe that something else was going on."

He continued, "Then on the day of the convention, my wife said, 'We have to go to Sheridan.' I wanted to know why we had to go, what's in Sheridan for me? She said, 'Well, my sister broke her car.' I didn't think that I was her sister's first call if her car broke down. So, I had my suspicions."

Aside from a ruined surprise, Richard was happy with the outcome of his trip to Sheridan. He said, "It's always good to get recognized for the stuff you do. I've been professionally doing this since I was 18 years old, and most of that time it's just been 'good job, here's your paycheck.' So to win something and get recognition from companies all across the state, that's nice. And I got to meet other people in my occupation and learn more about the industry that I'm in, so it was a good time."

Richard was born and raised in Worland, where he grew up in a family of mechanics. He said, "I've kind of just always been around it. This is what my grandpa did, and my dad did it for a long time, so I've always been exposed to it. When I first started working I was more on the automotive side, but I had a grandpa that was a truck driver, so I was exposed to big trucks at a young age and so it just fell right in place. I fell in love with diesels, and I just stuck with it from there. It's the only class I ever did good in at school, so I thought I might as well stick with it."

He graduated from Worland High School and went to the Universal Technical Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, to study diesel and industrial technology. He earned an associate's degree and returned home to Worland, where he spent a sugarbeet harvest season doing maintenance work for TranSystems. He then spent some time working in the oil field, but returned once again and started working in maintenance for Admiral Transport Corporation in 2012.

Of his duties today, Richard said, "I do all the trailer maintenance, I help on the trucks, I do a little bit of everything: I work on everything from four wheelers, to lawnmowers, weed eaters, go karts, big trucks, small trucks... if it's got an engine we work on it in here."

Richard has now been with Admiral for 11 years, and he has good reason to stay. He said, "Getting paid to do what you like is pretty cool to be honest."

The Admiral shop has been a good place for him because he usually has a hard time getting bored. He said, "You get to do something different every day. For the most part we do the same kind of stuff but you never know what's going to come through the door. You could be greasing a trailer and next thing you know you're up working on a wheel line, it changes minute by minute sometimes."

Although he likes working behind the scenes, Richard said that he is grateful to be recognized because maintenance work usually goes without praise. "Really though, awards are one thing, but to be able to show up every day and continue to do what I'm doing, and to know that it's being appreciated is a good feeling. I've been around a lot of areas of the maintenance field, and a common thing is that maintenance guys are overlooked. You get used to that, so when maintenance does get recognized it's cool to see. They're the lifeblood, if they can't do their job nobody else can do theirs. And it's vice-versa, if we're not staying on top of stuff then everyone else is miserable. So it's nice to see that what we're doing in the shop is

valued."