The Post Falls Highway District has an extensive fleet of rigs and scores of equipment.

Randy Neal keeps it all in tip-top condition.

“It's a very interesting way to make a living, I'm really amazed at the number of directions you can go as a mechanic,” Neal said.

But after 37 years, Neal is hanging up his tools and is retiring this month.

“It's gone by pretty fast. We plow snow in the winter, we pave, we chip seal, there are so many operations to keep track of, but it's a variety of machines now, everything from chain saws to loaders, we have a very diverse fleet,” Neal said.

Becoming a mechanic wasn’t his first plan. 

Initially, he wanted to work in a sawmill, but the magnetism of the job of maintaining and repairing machines was something he couldn’t resist ever since a teacher mentioned the job as a career option. 

After graduating from the diesel mechanic apprenticeship program at North Idaho College, the highway district job was the first path where he saw as something that could be permanent.

“This was my 10th mechanic job in 10 years. Each were for about a year, some were just to get the experience,” Neal recalled. “My plan was to come to work here and make a career out of it.” 

Now as the lead mechanic for the highway district, the versatile applications of his job still surprise him.

Things fall into more of a rhythm when he’s able to work ahead of the current season to make sure the equipment is ready to run, especially in the winter.

“It’s not a laid-back job, the roads have to be plowed. There’s been times I’ve come in at midnight and worked through the night to have a truck ready by 6 o’clock and that’s after working all day,” Neal said. 

After having grown up on the Rathdrum Prairie, he often thinks of his golden days and wishes his daughter, Kallie Neal, had gotten more of the experiences he witnessed, but he’s come around to making peace with the fact that change happens and that she is experiencing different kinds of golden days than in his memory. 

Playing mechanic to changing technology over the past decades has also posed an interesting set of new problems to tackle. 

“It's more button-pushing than wrenching at times,” Neal said of the newer technology. 

He’s happy to leave the newer equipment in the hands of fellow mechanic Andy Cynova.   

He hopes that his legacy at the highway district is a regimen of preventative maintenance. Keeping ahead when things break down has been his secret to success. 

Neal's tip to fellow workers is simple: “Do what you can and go home when they let you.”

    A clipping of Randy Neal in the Coeur d'Alene Press shares his connection to the diesel mechanics program at North Idaho College.