Firmly in Control

Peyton Dyer’s story is a great example of what was envisioned when the Heavy Equipment Operator (HEO) Construction Pathway was launched in six Georgia high schools in 2022. That number has since risen to more than two dozen, including Peyton’s alma mater, Harris County High School. Having completed the curriculum under Welding and Heavy Equipment Teacher Mark Howington, Peyton graduated in April 2025 and immediately began a full-time job with Meriwether Site Solutions (MSS), an excavating contractor based in neighboring Meriwether County.

The HEO Pathway “helped prepare me a lot,” Peyton says. “It got me used to all the controls and how to make everything run smooth. The simulators are very sensitive compared to the actual machines. But it really helped. Some of the simulations were on how to fill up a haul truck properly, and I’ve been doing some of that at work.”

Peyton actually began building experience with MSS prior to graduation, thanks to a Work Based Learning (WBL) opportunity that, he says, “got me out of school and into the real world. They put me in their shop, and I did some manufacturing forms and some oil changes on the tractors.”

Hands-on work comes naturally to Peyton, who remembers accompanying his father on framing and roofing jobs when he was growing up in the small town of Shiloh. At Harris County High he learned welding along with HEO skills, and he credits Howington for having “a lot to do with” his success. “He was pretty much the one who pushed me to do welding and heavy equipment, and then to get on with MSS.

“Peyton was a very good student,” Howington says. “He worked very hard to acquire an AWS welding certification in Shielded Metal Arc Welding. He later signed up for the Heavy Equipment class that I started teaching along with welding. As usual, he applied himself and became successful in this area also. In his senior year,  Peyton secured a job working for [MSS]. He did very well since he had learned good work ethics in the classroom and from working in the welding lab.

“I told Peyton that he had the best of both worlds,” Howington adds. “Meaning that he had welding skills to work on equipment and he had the skills to operate the equipment.”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, overall employment of construction equipment operators almost 50,000 job openings are projected for construction equipment operators each year through 2034. Construction Ready helped Toombs County High School launch the inaugural program, including the creation of the program’s curriculum and standards, which received approval from the state Board of Education with support from the Georgia Department of Education. Industry partners have played, and continue to play, a vital role, including C.W. Matthews, the Georgia Highway Contractors Association and local companies eager to train and hire graduates.

“The heavy equipment operator program is a great opportunity for young people to … explore the heavy equipment industry, as well as construction in general,” David Moellering, President of the Georgia Highway Contractors Association, told Atlanta’s 11Alive News in April 2024. “It’s a good opportunity to get exposure to an industry that could be a great career.”

HEO pathway classes include “vision trips” in which students meet industry partners on work sites. The partners have the opportunity to build relationships with the students, and the students get to test-drive the equipment and see skilled operators in action.

Peyton and his classmates made such a trip, visiting a job site in nearby Troup County and trying their hand on some of C.W. Matthews’ equipment. “They let us push dirt with their dozers,” he recalls. “We dug a trench with the trackhoe. It was pretty fun. I could actually control it a lot better in the dozer than in the simulator.”

Now Peyton is growing into an experienced operator himself, and he’s loving his career choice.

“I’ve been on pretty much everything, from the smallest mini excavator to the 374, one of the biggest trackhoes we have,” he says. “My foreman and my superintendent taught me how to run GPS on a dozer. That’s probably one of the hardest things to do on a job site, and they made it a lot easier for me. I enjoy every single bit of it. It’s all fun. When I’m in a trackhoe, I’m just all by myself and I feel really calm.”