NYC Ironworker Chad Snow is Unsung: A Hardworking Series by Shell Rotella T

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• published: 03 Nov 2015
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Watch more from Shell Rotella T's Unsung series here: http://youtube.com/shellrotellat Unsung: a life in the day of hard work. A Shell Rotella T hardworking experience. For more than a century, the men of the Mohawk Tribe have walked the high steel in New York City, bolting together the city’s skyscrapers and bridges. The dangerous work is their birthright passed down from generation to generation. Chad Snow’s father was an ironworker and so was his father before him and his father before him. Today, he leads a double life: one fast-paced and full of risk in the Big Apple and another of peace and quiet with his family on the Mohawk reservation, just south of Montreal, Canada. Chad’s children give him strength and remind him why he does what he does and why he risks everything for them. Chad works hard as an ironworker. Shell ROTELLA is the engine oil that works as hard as you. Shell Rotella’s featured products include Shell Rotella T6 and Shell Rotella T5. _______________________________________ Transcript: Everybody is below us. We’re always the first ones up. I get a rush, just thrilling to be up high and get a view that other people don’t usually get to have. But you have to be careful. The steel is unforgiving. You know, one wrong step could be your last step. We’re the first ones on the site and we put up like the skeletons to the buildings. Now my job is to direct the steel: fasten it, bolt it, most of the dangerous work. My father was an ironworker. My grandfather and my great-grandfather were ironworkers. I’m proud to be Mohawk. I’ve got a long heritage of ironworkers. The gang I’m with now, everybody’s worked together a long time, twenty years off and on and we all know each other’s moves. I’ve been connecting for probably around twenty-five years. I had a map when I started, I used to put “x’s” on the jobs I was on. I got too many “x’s” and I just stopped after a while. I broke in on Battery Park. I worked on Manhattan Bridge, second World Trade Center, the one that fell when the towers went down. I like New York City and the five boroughs. Once you do make it here, you feel very successful but kind of lonely. During the week, I live in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Friday to Sunday, I live in Montreal, Canada: Kahnawake. It’s an Indian Reserve on the Saint Lawrence River, just on the outskirts of Montreal. It’s a tight-knit community, very proud people. We respect the land and the animals and everything that’s been given to us by the Great Creator. The reserve was mostly all ironworkers at one time. It’s passed down generation to generation. You’re kind of told that you have to be the best. Times have changed and there’s not as many ironworkers as there used to be. People went to school, more entrepreneurs. This is where I was born and raised. I think it’s beautiful. When I’m home, I have my wife and my kids and I like to barbecue and swim and hang out and do stuff with my kids. You want the best, to make them successful and prepare them for life. Try and teach them the ways of the world, make them strong and not pushovers, you know. Picture of my father in New York City and my father iron working in 1976. I was very proud to come from him because he was a good man and he’s the one that broke me in as an apprentice. I have my son, I wouldn’t mind if he was an iron worker. I would prefer he do something else. Life is a sacrifice. They bring me strength and remind me why I’m doing it and why I’m there. People always have to take risks or we wouldn’t be where we are.