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Hatter Jaus Neigum stands with his first place prize at the Operator Challenge Western Regional Finals in North Carolina. He will compete in Las Vegas next year at worlds.
mcranker@medicinehatnews.com@MHNmocranker
Jaus Neigum is on his way to being the best in his craft.
The born-and-raised Hatter recently returned from North Carolina where he showed his skills as a heavy machinery operator in the 2019 Operator Challenge. His strong showing booked him a ticket to the 2020 CONEXPO-CON/AGG in Las Vegas to compete on the world stage.
“It’s exciting,” he said. “This is the first time they’ve ever done a Global Operator Challenge and I was just happy to be able to compete.
“It was a lot of fun to go out and compete and to see where everyone else is at.”
The competitions require people to complete tasks in Caterpillar equipment – with the quickest time winning.
While Neigum was having a lot of fun, he was also winning – a lot. He originally competed and won in Edmonton to qualify for the North American finals. That got him a late-October trip to North Carolina where he was able to win the Western North America finals.
“You have to know how to use the equipment and all of the technology to complete a number of different things,” he said. “In Edmonton, on one challenge we had to load up three buckets of dirt and hit a correct tonnage of weight while loading a truck with the fastest time.
“Both Edmonton and North Carolina had four challenges with equipment ranging from mini excavators, track skidsteers, loaders, medium sized excavators and a dozer. The challenges in North Carolina were definitely a little more in depth.”
Neigum works for Industrial Backhoes Ltd. in Medicine Hat and has been operating heavy machinery for around 20 years.
“This is what I love to do,” he said. “I was born into it and I got to spend a lot of time at a young age learning how to operate and I still to this day operate equipment on a regular basis.”
“I love going into work every day. Doing these competitions is just a lot of fun for me – it’s definitely something I’m passionate about and I get to showcase my skills.
“We’ve competed in challenges in the past – my uncle actually won a North American championship for CASE Equipment in 1992.”
Neigum says he will be putting in extra hours of practice before March’s competition.
“I’ll keep working and practising – I’m hoping to maybe get our local Cat Finning Dealer to hook us up with some newer equipment to practise with before the next competition,” he said. “I didn’t put too much time into training for North Carolina, but I’m definitely going to put some work in before worlds.”
