Driving for Tornado Tours

[David Williams]

Hey all,
Just had a question for any of those ST members that are drivers/guides for chasing tours. I currently have the month of june off because I am a teacher. I was curious about what chase companies want from driver/guides. Do you need any qualifications, etc.? Are you paid? Do you receive any compensation? If anyone has been a driver/guide for a tour company, any info you can share with me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[MatthewCarman]

Hey all,
Just had a question for any of those ST members that are drivers/guides for chasing tours. I currently have the month of june off because I am a teacher. I was curious about what chase companies want from driver/guides. Do you need any qualifications, etc.? Are you paid? Do you receive any compensation? If anyone has been a driver/guide for a tour company, any info you can share with me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

You could run your own chasing tour for that month. New chasing tours pop up every year it seems like so you may be able to find one that needs a driver but I would think most tours already have enough drivers.

 

[Jason Foster]

I've thought out this too, but frankly I would just call the companies directly. I suspect that many will not talk about pay, benefits, etc. Last thing a company wants is for their driver to see what others are getting to have their employee/partners expect more compensation. Vice Versa, someone getting a sweet-heart deal doesn't want to see how little others are getting and worry that they may get cut.

Of course I don't own a tour company, never driven for one, and never followed up on my interests to do it.

 

[Melanie Kern-Favilla]

I drove for a major tour company this year, but I established myself with them for four years prior as a guest. I agree w/previous post; You might want to ride along with them and see how they operate and they can get to know you as well.

 

[Scott Weberpal]

I won't give any specifics, but I drove for a tour group for many years and was treated very well. On top of having my room paid for, I was also compensated very well on a per-day basis. The only thing I had to cover was my food and incidentals.

Honestly, I wouldn't worry as much about getting paid as I would be about making sure I was in with a good outfit. A friend of mine was with a group this year and was ready to leave halfway through the tour.

Many companies have insurance companies that require guides to be at least 25 years old and will run a background check (both criminal and driving record) on potential drivers.

Lastly, make sure the company is fully insured and has top of the line liability. The last thing I would want is to be associated with a group without very good insurance and end up having to foot numerous medical bills because I was a driver when an incident happened.

 

[Chad Berryhill]

Hey all,
Just had a question for any of those ST members that are drivers/guides for chasing tours. I currently have the month of june off because I am a teacher. I was curious about what chase companies want from driver/guides. Do you need any qualifications, etc.? Are you paid? Do you receive any compensation? If anyone has been a driver/guide for a tour company, any info you can share with me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

My advice it to not have a hidden agenda. You truly have to be there for the guests, and that means before and after the storm. Make sure you are up for that kind of task. It's not always easy, because everyone is different.

 

[Lanny Dean]

Hi David,
I received you e-mail and I am sorry that I have not responded yet but this time of the year is spent with the family as you can imagine. I will try shoot you an e-mail later this evening for a more in depth response.

As far as your questions:

Compensation
I am unsure of any tour company that pays drivers excluding mine. I am not saying that they don't but I do not believe they do. Some companies cover your motel expenses to "help" pay for the trip but as far as I know thats about it.

Qualifications
This is another grey area that is usually up to the owner/owners and what they may expect from drivers/guides.
For example, there is a difference between a guide and a driver with ECT. I expect more out of my guides than my drivers for obvious reasons and as such, the pay scale reflects that difference. I don't know of any company that requires their guides to have any sort of meteorology degree, athough it would certainly help. My lead guide, Chad Berryhill, does not have a degree in meteorology but he does have a degree in science. He has also spent much much time with me in the field and trust is not an issue. My business partner, Jeff Smith, is the same way. However, I usually require that my guides have a number of years experience at the very least. As far as my drivers the same rule applies. Some companies will use tour customers as drivers after they have been on a few tours with them, much like Melanie explained above.
I generally like to use people I know and trust to drive or guide for me. For instance, in 2009 Mr. Shane Adams and Bridget G. took a tour out for me and did a wonderful job. Of course Shane has MUCH experience (15 years or so) and it was a true pleasure not having to "hold his hand" during the tour.
This year Mr. Skip Talbot, was kind enough to help me out as a driver and support during a production tour. His motels and gas were covered so his only expense was food and incidental items and he did a wonderful job for me. Again, Skip has a tone of experience which really helps out.
I usually get many, many e-mails every month from people asking if they can drive or guide for me with many of them having no experience at all....as you can imagine I will not reply to those people due to the fact that there are much more qualified people available, most of which are only an e-mail away. Scott Bennett was kind enough to try and help me this year and although Scott has been chasing less than 5 years now, he has the experience level of a veteran and to be honest I would rather use him than some meteorologist or veteran chasers. Of course there are those chasers that I have used that I will not use again for various reason.
So hopefully you see what I mean about it being a grey area....you really have to trust who you have guiding or driving for you.

As an owner, that is about all that I can really give you...I will see if Chad Berryhill can chime in to help. Hope this helps a little.

 

[David Williams]

Wow Lanny, thank you for the extremely thorough response. And thanks to everyone else for the info, too.

 

[Melanie Kern-Favilla]

I would like to add to Chad's post...

The comfort and safety of the tour guests needs to be your first priority. Guests pay a lot of money to be out there and you need to provide safe, professional service in exchange. (That's another reason why it helps to be a guest first, before you become a driver. When you're paying $3k or more to be out there, you'll be more sensitive to what the guests expect.)

You give up some things when you're a driver. For instance, sometimes, you pull over on a narrow dirt road and need to reposition the van so that you're ready to roll out of there at the drop of a hat (and position the van so that you're not blocking the road, lol), while everyone else is out of the van, looking at the tornado. This means that you're not the first out of the van, snapping photos and video when there's a tornado on the ground.

You really need to be the first one in the van when it's time to roll. It doesn't look good when you're the last one in the van and everyone is waiting on you.

I also made sure that if meet-up time in the morning was at 8am, I was getting the van in front of the hotel at 7:45. I don't ever want people to be waiting on me.

I learned fairly quickly that, depending on the guests' personalities, it helps to have a bit of a type-A personality. As a driver/guide, you're responsible for the safety of the guests. If, as a driver, I say to the guests, 'We're in a high-risk lightning area; Everyone in the van,' and one person decides to do his own thing and ignore you, it helps to be able to speak up and make yourself heard. Fortunately, I have no problem in that department.

You certainly make sacrifices as a driver/guide, but for me, I loved it and I can't wait to do it again next year.

 

[Lanny Dean]

You are more than welcome David! And, Melanie, what a great post...some really good points and great work ethic!

 

[Olivier Staiger]

David Duncan wrote :
quote, ... I currently have the month of june off ... , unquote,

but ... this thread is from yesterday ? ?

;-)

anyways,

... I drove this year for Chris Chittick's and Reed Timmer's www.extremetornadotours.com all season, mid-april to late June . Yes it helps a lot to have been a passenger on tours prior to drive for them. I have been a passenger for several years with Charles Edwards' Cloud9 tours, and also once with Cyclone tours ( a spinnoff tour - no pun intended - that was owned by Jim Leonard and Mike Theiss for a few years ) and I even briefly drove for Cyclone Tours for 2 weeks in 2005. And I was a passenger in 2008 of Extreme Tornado Tours ( I may have been their first client, I believe ).

And I think that I have a lot of additionnal chase experience, not only from chase tours, but also having chased a lot with experienced chasers one-on-one, such as Gene Moore, and also with Mike Theiss, and Dean Gill, and a few more here and there.

Plus, I am actually a profesionnal limo driver , having driven many high-end cars and vans since 1986, including Hummer , Range Rover, Mercedes, BMW , Audi, stretch limos, Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, and even a Maybach once ( ok, ok, it was just the normal Maybach, not the longhwheelbase ..

Customer service is like a second nature to me, having a degree from the hotel management school in Lausanne Switzerland, and having worked in a few 5-star hotels, a jewellry and various deluxe car rental and limo companies for over 25 years.

and , I speak a few foreign languages, which can be useful for european tourists.

However, I am not going to talk about benefit / pay / compensation in detail here. Lets just say that I would not do it if I wasn't happy.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

David Duncan wrote :
quote, ... I currently have the month of june off ... , unquote,

but ... this thread is from yesterday ? ?

;-)

anyways,

... I drove this year for Chris Chittick's and Reed Timmer's www.extremetornadotours.com all season, mid-april to late June . Yes it helps a lot to have been a passenger on tours prior to drive for them. I have been a passenger for several years with Charles Edwards' Cloud9 tours, and also once with Cyclone tours ( a spinnoff tour - no pun intended - that was owned by Jim Leonard and Mike Theiss for a few years ) and I even briefly drove for Cyclone Tours for 2 weeks in 2005. And I was a passenger in 2008 of Extreme Tornado Tours ( I may have been their first client, I believe ).

And I think that I have a lot of additionnal chase experience, not only from chase tours, but also having chased a lot with experienced chasers one-on-one, such as Gene Moore, and also with Mike Theiss, and Dean Gill, and a few more here and there.

Plus, I am actually a profesionnal limo driver , having driven many high-end cars and vans since 1986, including Hummer , Range Rover, Mercedes, BMW , Audi, stretch limos, Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, and even a Maybach once ( ok, ok, it was just the normal Maybach, not the longhwheelbase ..

Customer service is like a second nature to me, having a degree from the hotel management school in Lausanne Switzerland, and having worked in a few 5-star hotels, a jewellry and various deluxe car rental and limo companies for over 25 years.

and , I speak a few foreign languages, which can be useful for european tourists.

However, I am not going to talk about benefit / pay / compensation in detail here. Lets just say that I would not do it if I wasn't happy.

Nice post Ol. When you've even only 10 days free remember there's my tour that waits for you.

To me, first, the important is to have responsability in your mind and think that you're not a "common" chaser who does it for fun but you have to look after a lot of people, that sometime is not so simple. After that it's normal that you need to have some experience with chasing and with driving in bad conditions.

 

[Melanie Kern-Favilla]

Olivier Staiger;282378
Plus, I am actually a profesionnal limo driver , having driven many high-end cars and vans since 1986, including Hummer , Range Rover, Mercedes, BMW , Audi, stretch limos....

I'm a locomotive engineer who moves about 2500 people a day...Does that count?

No really, I think the fact that I am involved in a profession that transports people (and it's an extremely safety-sensitive position at that) made me a more desirable candidate.

I'd also like to mention that I was very fortunate to have an extremely experienced co-driver with me (love ya, buddy!) for my first time out. I was glad to see that the tour company didn't just throw me into the weeds and wish me luck. It made me more comfortable and I'm sure the guests felt comfortable with it as well.

And if the tour company doesn't ask you to fill out a mountain of paperwork ahead of time, I would be suspect of them. Background checks, criminal and driving, should be required of every driver, IMO.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Olivier Staiger;282378
Plus, I am actually a profesionnal limo driver , having driven many high-end cars and vans since 1986, including Hummer , Range Rover, Mercedes, BMW , Audi, stretch limos....

I'm a locomotive engineer who moves about 2500 people a day...Does that count?

I think that counts more than all: the first danger in stormchasing comes from the road and not from the storms.

 

[Olivier Staiger]

Olivier Staiger;282378
Plus, I am actually a profesionnal limo driver , having driven many high-end cars and vans since 1986, including Hummer , Range Rover, Mercedes, BMW , Audi, stretch limos....

I'm a locomotive engineer who moves about 2500 people a day...Does that count?

oh yes, that counts a lot, in my opinion.

Wonderful. are you driving for Amtrak ? I just discovered the fantastic Amtrak comfort last spring, I had never travelled in the U.S. by train ( I do a lot of train here in Switzerland ) , but late April I took a ride on the Amtrak from Fort Worth to Norman. Awesome space and comfort, wide and reclining chairs like first class airplane, an absolutely HUGE experience, and dirt cheap, as low as 28 bucks .