Britney Bradley grew up around heavy equipment. As a kid, she helped her father and grandfather load and deliver enormous bales of hay to dairy farms and feed stores.
Now, Britney maneuvers heavy equipment of her own: 250 tons worth, to be precise. She operates a crawler crane on the Project and is responsible for lowering materials down into the tail track exit shaft. She also carries away 75,000-pound boxes of muck, or debris that has been extracted by the tunnel boring machines.
Britney recently finished her four-year apprenticeship program with the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 12, which consisted of classroom instruction as well as on-the-job experience. In total, she completed over 6,300 hours of training in order to become an Operator in July. During that time, she operated various heavy equipment, with a specialty in cranes, on projects such as wind turbine installation in Palm Springs.
As a southern California native, Britney finds her work on the Purple Line Extension very rewarding. And challenging. Which is just how she prefers it. “If you don’t have that fear and intimidation,” she says, “then you’re not learning from your experience.”
What’s Britney’s secret to working on such intense projects? Embrace the discomfort.
“To be uncomfortable is your best friend. Once you get comfortable, you stop growing.”
