
January 29, 2025
By Lane Kimble
ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — It’s normally a 30-second task: Lift the concrete bucket with a crane and swing it to the other side of the job site without hitting anything.
Well, that task took six times as long on Tuesday. And it repeated over and over and over again.
Adam Schroeder didn’t mind, though. He knew that task could lay the foundation for future employees.
“It was a cool learning experience, the students definitely smiled,” Schroeder said.
Schroeder guided dozens of students from four eastern-Wisconsin schools through crane hand signal operations at Lunda Construction’s bridge replacement at Road America racing track.
The project gave Lunda a chance to get students in the field in a fairly controlled environment and get some hands-on education.
Check out live webcams of construction work at Road America HERE
“It was challenging–today especially–the wind was picking up a little bit… but I was instructing the operator there to do only what the students had for hand signals, so if they did it wrong or went past the designated drop zone, they had to stop the crane and bring it back to where it needs to be,” Schroeder said.
Those practical lessons–and a little tough love–had a positive effect on Neenah junior Coltin Potter. He said the crane signaling took a little getting used to, but was the coolest experience of the day.
“I find it a lot more valuable than just learning about it or anything like that inside of a classroom… you see what’s going on, get experience,” Potter said.
Lunda coordinated with Road America and Inspire Wisconsin (part of CESA 6) to plan out various stations and educational opportunities. That included a look at engineering and blueprints, plus a little Road America history.
“It’s getting more and more prevalent for contractors to host students on their job sites, so we wanted to have the opportunity,” Schroeder said. “Kind of cool to show what we do every day to someone who might not have ever seen behind the scenes.”