I am in a job where I get to travel all over the world and deal with new machinery. I enjoy getting up on Monday morning and going to work. Not many people can say that.”

At 22, Mark O’Meara is the first to admit he has a job that many would only dream of. As a harvesting customer support specialist for John Deere, he mainly travels across Europe, educating the manufacturer’s clientele on how best to ensure the John Deere product is working as well as it can be. For those interested in tractors, engineering design and travel, what more could you ask for?

A career that had its beginning at the Franciscan College, Gormanston, and progressed into DIT, O’Meara has had a passion for manufacturing from an early age.

“I always had an interest in how things were made. Even at home, I was always interested in how things were built, taking them apart and puting them back together. Design also appealed to me and when the decision for college had to be made, Manufacturing and Design Engineering at DIT seemed the right course for me.”

The first three years of the four-year course laid the foundations for the Navan native to equip himself with the basics before he attempted to secure a summer internship in 2016 with a major manufacturer. Cue the LAMMA Agricultural and Machinery Show in Peterborough, England, in January 2016.

“My brother, James, worked for John Deere at the time and told me to go to the LAMMA show and chat with industry members to see if I could get summer placement. I spoke with almost 40 companies, but none were giving student placements at that time. When I went to the John Deere stand I got taking with someone there who told me I may be interested in a role they had.”

The job was product validation and verification for Fixed Chamber Balers (441 Range). In simple terms, it was the last phase of testing products before they went to the market. O’Meara started in May and finished in September 2016, before returning to his final year in DIT.

“At that point I had to keep my foot in the door and I did my thesis on a John Deere product. After that I went to LAMMA again and, like the year before, I spoke with numerous industry personnel. This time a number of companies offered me interviews, including John Deere.”

“One morning in February, I had a number of phone interviews with various agricultural manufacturers. And that evening John Deere called me and asked me if I wanted to take up a position with the company.”

New perspectives

The job title was a service specialist for the Self-Propelled Forage Harvester. The countries of operation would include Ireland, the UK, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey, with the predominant time spent in Italy and the UK.

But its business and things move on fast. A strategy change within John Deere gave O’Meara a new opportunity in his current role.

“When several new roles came up in the business due to a strategy change in August 2017, I was offered the role of harvesting customer support specialist. I began the new job in December and I love it”, O’Meara explained.

“I am dealing with people every day in the job. Each day is different, but I would predominantly be ensuring that those who use our products are taught how to optimise them so they will work to the highest spec that they can. In many ways you are teaching. The other side of the job is gathering information on the downsides of some products, so that we can improve them.”

Today, O’Meara resides in Nottingham and while the Meath man has been fortunate with his life choices, he is adamant that putting yourself out there in the early part of your career will reap the rewards.

“It is all good and well putting in CVs to companies, but for me, going out there and talking with those in the industry is vital. Going to a careers fair or agricultural show can be the difference between getting a job and not.”

Mark O’Meara does again admit he has a job that maybe many would only dream of. But choices and perseverance helped him along the way. CL