Richard Beckett
Richard (Dick) John Beckett was born during November 1946 in Launceston, Tasmania, into a farming family from Liffey in the Central North. He went to Bracknell District School with his siblings while helping with the family dairy farm and working as a steam boiler attendant, log breaker, and sawmiller at a local mill.
After leaving school, Dick was offered a job with the Pearn family from Whitemore, gaining experience driving bulldozers. In 1964, at 18, he purchased his own TD18 bulldozer, which he operated on Flinders Island for the local shire and private landowners for several years. In 1970, he married his wife, Faye, and settled down locally.
Dick and Faye started a logging business with a beloved early model Flintstone Mack Truck and a Caterpillar Bulldozer, which he used to fell, cut and transport timber to sawmills until 1976. Times were tough. A broken driver’s window on the truck was not fitted for 3 months during winter and there was no heater in the truck.
One blistering cold winter, one of the early Macks broke down in the mountains and Dick had to abandon it to return the next day to replace the diff. When the engine still wouldn’t successfully start, a closer inspection found that the engine block had split in half when water in the engine expanded during the freezing cold night prior!
Dick’s sons, Jason and Scott were born in 1972 and 1974 respectively. After finishing with the logging, Dick purchased a D9 dozer with a low loader and set to work towing it to Savage River Mine on the west coast of Tasmania with the help of a trusty but way underrated Mack Truck with no brakes! It was definitely a career achievement to get everything there in one piece! The mine work was 24/7 but, with much sacrifice and time apart, Dick and Faye were able to branch out into dam construction, mining, civil works and large infrastructure projects across Tasmania, Sydney and the Hunter valley coal mines.
In the 1970s, the Flintstone Mack was replaced with a heavy-duty Kenworth, with an updated 8V92, 13 speed main box, 2 speed diffs and heavy duty 6 rod suspension. Soon after, Dick added Tasmania’s first widening Drake low loader and dolly with a V8 Mack to move the ever-growing fleet.
From their teens, Jason and Scott worked alongside their dad in some of Tasmania’s toughest heavy haulage conditions. The family has also been first on the ground during Tasmania’s severe summer bushfires, running dozers and floats for relief.
Together, Dick, Faye, Jason and Scott have built a major earthmoving, mining, and civil operation with over 100 Caterpillar machines and a collection of around 30 vintage and modern Mack Trucks from Australia, New Zealand, and the USA.
Although officially semi-retired, Dick can be found almost every day behind the wheel of a Mack Truck with the low loader, on a D8 dozer perfecting the batter on a dam wall, spending time with their 4 grandchildren or travelling the world with Faye and friends, touring truck and machinery exhibitions.