The Role: Supports vegetable and summer crop operations by operating tractors and other farm machinery to assist with planting, harvesting, and field preparation.

Location(s): Salinas, CA

Areas of Responsibility:

• Drives and controls one or more farm machines, such as tractors, trucks, and harvesters to harvest crops.
• Refuel engine lubricates machine parts and monitors machine operations to ensure optimum performance.
• Prepares harvesting machine by adjusting speeds of cutters, blowers, and conveyors and height of cutting head or depth of digging blades according to type, height, weight, and condition of the crop being harvested, and conveyors and height of cutting head or depth of digging blades according to type, height, and condition of the crop being harvested, and contour of the terrain.
• Attaches towed or-mounted-type harvesting machine to the tractor, using hand tools, or drives self-propelled harvesting machine to cut, pull up, thresh, clean, chop, bag, or bundle crops.
• Moves switches, pulls, levers, and turns knobs and wheels to activate and regulate mechanisms. Drives truck to haul materials, supplies, or harvested crops to designated locations.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Education and/or Experience: Minimum of three months experience driving forklift, tractor, and tillage equipment.
• Language Skills: Ability to read and comprehend simple instructions, short correspondence, and memos. Ability to write simple correspondence.
• Mathematical Skills: Ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide in all units of measure, using whole numbers, common fractions, and decimals.
• Reasoning Ability: Ability to apply common sense understanding to carry out detailed but uninvolved written or oral instructions. Ability to deal with problems involving a few concrete variables in standardized situations.
• Other Skills and Abilities: Bilingual (English/Spanish) is a plus.

Other Qualifications

• Physical Demands: The role requires frequent sitting and communication, with occasional standing, walking, reaching, and lifting up to 50 lbs. It also requires a full range of vision abilities to perform essential tasks.
• Work Environment: Work is performed outdoors in varying weather conditions, with exposure to sun, wind, dust, insects, pollen, and treated fields. Employees may also encounter loud noise, moving mechanical parts, and occasional vibration, so appropriate clothing and footwear are important.