I grew up around heavy equipment. John Deere, Farmall, Allis-Chalmers, International Harvester, on the farms. On construction jobs there was Ingersoll Rand, CAT, Euclid, Lima, Manitowoc, Bucyrus-Erie, etc., long before the newer technologies we see today on job sites. Back then nothing was hydraulic. Machinery was less refined, more blunt and heavy. Today's sophisticated excavators may have been in the pipeline, but nobody I worked with could have imagined something so precise and well designed. It was a man's world. In all my years of work in the coal fields, in power station retrofits, on road construction, I never saw a woman on a job site. It just didn't happen.

Many years ago, here in Maine I saw a woman driving a dump truck and then, eventually, I saw the same person working an excavator, very skillfully, I might add. That person was Carole Jordan. I wasn't sure how that could be. The question in my mind was, why would she do this kind of work? It seemed so abnormal. But, there she was, in jeans, a sweatshirt and ball cap, as if it were an everyday experience, which, by the way, it was. I couldn't imagine how difficult it must be to do this kind of work, so much in the public eye, so well. And I wasn't alone. I recall comments, winks, and gestures – the kind of stuff that today, would get you fired. But Carole took it all in stride and did a fine job. Still does.

Carole wasn't always an equipment operator. She first landed in Maine after a bumpy session at home as a teenager in Massachusetts. Her high school senior year she was moved to Maine to live with her father. At the finish of school in Bath she was told to get a job and set out on her own. That's when she started at Crooker's “A Taste of Maine” and where she met and worked with Alden Jordan, Craig Andrews and Lisa, then, Ottley. When Alden left restaurant work (his folks owned Jordan’s “Upstairs Downstairs”) he invited Carole to work with him when he started his own construction business sporting a 1971 GMC dump truck and a 580 CASE backhoe. Carole wasn't so sure, but she moved down to Boothbay Harbor working at Rocktide with the likes of Toat Fossett, Lee Yereance and Gert Muise and then to Andrews’ Harborside where she served up the morning hash with Sue Bean. This was at the beginning of the famous Andrews’ Harborside cinnamon bun era which many of us recall with great salivation! Legendary stuff!

Now Carole, some 40 years later, manages a whole new cluster of equipment, and still works with Alden on construction projects. When she sleeps is a very good question. She is hooked into “Boothbay Canine” 24 hours a day. She sleeps with one ear open, but manages all her pups with the same precision she employs to deliver measured buckets of gravel within inches of a designated target in a ditch or on an embankment. Dogs love her and she loves them right back. Our new pup, Leica, trembles with excitement when greeted by Carole at the office door, and comes home completely exhausted from a day of play with all her friends. Carole doesn't seem to know her limitations. And please don't try to tell her what her limitations are – it could get messy. She is very determined and focused, and I mean that in a good way. So, if you have a dog or a ditch, you're in good shape with Ms. Jordan!