Jason Barry became heavily involved in the transport industry at around 2000, when he finished his light vehicle apprenticeship and moved to Albury-Wodonga to advance in his career.
“That was when I was introduced to the heavy transport, so my first job in that area, I was working for Kenworth, Volvo and Isuzu at the time,” he says. “I was doing that while I was studying.”
Jason worked at a few mechanical shops, spent a few years at Cummins doing engine rebuilding and service mechanical work and went to an independent heavy repairer before going full-time on cranes, 18 years ago. He says the thing that has changed the most during his time in the field is the electronics – especially with the engine management systems and the braking.
“When I first started in the transport loading and crane industry, everything was full mechanical,” he says. “It was all mechanical check valves, mechanical limiting, and that’s 100 per cent obsolete now. There’s pretty much no cranes or loading systems out there now that are not ran by electronics with PCBs and ECUs and things like that.”
Jason says this was a very significant change, which lead to developments in diagnostics.
“From that, obviously that changes your thought path on diagnostics,” he says. “So instead of being able to see what was going wrong, you had to then rely on more electrical diagnosis and computers and laptops.”
Jason is also an Approved Vehicle Examiner (AVE) for the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR), and he says there has been a series of changes during the last seven years with the requirements for having engineers reports and modification plates in Victoria and NSW.
“I’m an accredited vehicle engineer through NHVR,” he says. “I do all the VASS engineering reports for VSB6, so over the years there’s definitely been a lot of changes in the standards to do with
your VSB6.”
His efforts and contributions for the industry haven’t gone unnoticed, as Jason won the Craig Roseneder Award for technical & maintenance excellence
in 2019.
“I was nominated by one of my customers from Mackay in 2018,” he says. “I was a finalist that year, and then I was renominated in 2019 and I was the winner. As a part of that, I got to travel over to Atlanta in America for their TMC conference, and I got to network with all the fleet operators, suppliers and mechanics in America.”
Jason says the award came with many benefits, as it helped him expand his knowledge in the transport industry.
“I started developing my skills and learning more in regards to the transport industry and that’s when I started leaning more towards the engineering side of things,” he said. “I’d been involved with the TMC for 14 or 15 years at the time. I love the way how professional everything was and the communications between the mechanics, the operators and the suppliers. I only ever missed a couple of their events, just due to other commitments.”
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