Head equipment technician Billy “Biggie” Quirit enthusiastically welcomes industry visitors to Nanea Golf Club, a stunning private course atop a hillside covered with lava rock and fountain grass. Quirit’s connection to the 15-year-old course runs deep: his family chiseled and shifted the lava rock that once covered the land.
“I started during the construction,” he says. “Most of family worked here for the people who built the course. I would get off work and I would jump on machines, excavators and dump trucks, and helped build it.”
Quirit now leads a three-person team of equipment technician responsible for ensuring the club’s fleet of John Deere mowers handle the demands of year-round paspalum mowing. Shops with multiple technicians and equipment leases are common on the Big Island.
“We are fortunate enough to lease out equipment,” Quirit says. “We’re not dealing with equipment that’s 10 or 11 years old, so having that is really nice. I have two guys with me that always show up to work and are always on time. When they got here, they didn’t know anything about golf, so I trained them to my way right away.
“It’s been working. I get to take time off and not worry about if the cut out there is going to be perfect, because that’s one of our goals is to make sure cut quality, the after-cut appearance, is at a high standard. I don’t send anything out there that doesn’t cut paper.”
Considered a patriarch of the island’s equipment technician community, Quirit worked at a pair of Big Island courses before landing the Nanea job. Quirit’s relaxed, affable personality – he immediately invited a visitor to a lunchtime barbecue earlier this year – helps create a familial vibe among the island’s equipment technicians. Their network includes representatives from multiple industry companies, including John Deere and distributor Pacific Golf & Turf, which sends a technician to Big Island customers each week. The corporate and distributor visits begin and end at maintenance facilities, and conversations extend beyond typical shop and business talk.
“It comes down to service, parts and relationships,” says John Deere sales manager John O’Leary, whose territory includes Hawaii. “It’s big for these guys to get to know somebody from corporate while also working with their dealer. It has been a good marriage.”
For Quirit, the ‘ohana reached the mainland last year, as he received an opportunity to visit the John Deere Turf Care Facility in Fuquay-Varina, N.C. The 5,000-mile trip further helped Quirit understand the process and people contributing to Nanea’s success.
“It was nice to see the factory,” he says. “I met a lot of good people and got to see the assembly line. That was a good trip, for sure.”
