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Fitness fanatic

by Travis Garner
Gary Collins, 50, his daughter, Caroline, 12, and his wife, Candace, trade some playful barbs in the kitchen. Gary cooks dinner nearly every night, using vegetables from the household garden whenever he can. Gary, famous for his homemade salsa at the Briggs & Stratton Co. where he works, enjoys kitchen duties.

One year after the opening of the Briggs & Straton factory in 1985, Gary Collins decided he’d try his hand working in the local engine production factory.

Since starting out as a part-time operator on the final assembly production line in January 1986, Gary has worked in nearly every area of the Fuel Systems Department. For the past six years, he has been the manufacturing quality analyst.

“What I do is primarily based on experience,” Gary said. “I’ve had hands on just about everything here.”

It is the experience that makes him a problem-solver, sort of a roving authority, gravitating purposefully between labs and offices and monitoring the production floor.

“I work in every area of the plant just about. I want to know first-hand what’s going on. I don’t like to hear it seconded-handed,” Gary said.

His drive to stay on top of things begins when he walks in the factory under the cover of darkness before 5 a.m. each workday.

But it doesn’t end there.

A sense of discipline seems to resonate among the Collins family as much as it does on the factory floor.

“My son said that if I was a Marine, I’d make a damn good one,” said Gary, whose son, Tyler, is a Marine enrolled in Air Force Flight School. Waking before sunrise, exercising daily and eating healthy might seem disciplined to some, but for Collins, it is no more than a routine he enjoys. He swims laps during lunch break each workday, rides 50 miles on his road bike after work and has a home-cooked dinner on the table for his wife, Candace, and daughter, Caroline, each day.

With a wife who works as a personal trainer and a passion for endurance sports, leading a healthy and active lifestyle is the only option.

“It’s part of my daily routine,” Gary said. “It’s what I do.”

During the cycling season, Gary trains to race mountain bikes.

“I like the challenges,” he said. “I participate in the 12-hour races ’cause I like to see how far I can push my body.”

One reason why Gary has chosen a career to the Briggs and Stratton is the close-to-home lifestyle and flexibility it allows. And the factory employs some 1,000 workers from the local region in a town of about 15,000.

“It’s a very personable place to work,” Gary said. “The management is outstanding. I can walk into anybody’s office up there and feel very comfortable talking to anyone.

“My goal is to stay here until Caroline gets out of high school. From there on it’s just gonna be because I enjoy what I do.”

Using every chance he gets to work exercise into his daily routine, Gary Collins swims laps in the pool at the J. Stuart Poston Center for Health and Wellness during his lunch break from work. Aside from his passion for cycling, Collins tries to swim laps every day during his lunch break to stay fit and healthy. "My release from the daily grind is to go to there for 30 minutes, put my head in the water and tune the world out," he said.
Caroline Collins, 12, plays with her dog, Simba, in the driveway of the family home in Murray. Caroline is a first-year cheerleader and second-year band member at Murray Middle School. She takes Simba to the "Bark in the Park" competition. "Simba wins like everything," said Candace Collins, Caroline's mother. "She taught him how to do everything." Gary Collins, her father, observing the playful pair said: "That dog is Caroline's best friend."
A kiss on the cheek was Gary Collins' declaration of truce with his wife, Candace, after an exchange of a few pointed jokes at the end of a jog together around the track at the Murray State football stadium. Although the competitive couple don't often find time to work out together, jogging serves as a fitness compromise for the pair since Candace, who works as a personal trainer, prefers running over cycling.
Taking a moment to lie down after getting home from school on a rainy day, Caroline Collins, 12, texts on her phone as her dad, Gary, works out on his road bike on a stand in the family living room. Collins races mountain bikes competitively and, although he is not currently in competition season, still uses his road bike to endurance train. "We're big on fitness around here," Gary said, after refusing to let heavy rains keep him from a cycling workout.
Shortly after starting his 5 a.m. shift at the Briggs & Stratton factory, Gary Collins checks his e-mail and reviews statistical data at his desk in the carburetor lab before making his production floor rounds. Gary holds the unique title of manufacturing quality analyst for the fuel systems department at Briggs. "I've been doing this for six years now, and no one has ever sat down and told me exactly what my job is," he said.
Gary Collins, left, supervises workers on the float-feed carburetor assembly line while making his rounds on the production floor of the Briggs & Stratton factory. "Some people would say I'm the prick. I'm the a-hole that makes you do what you're supposed to do," Gary said of his factory oversight role.
Notified over the intercom system of a part problem, Collins uses a leak-tester tool to apply pressure to a bee-bee in order to test the seal on a Pulsa-prime carburetor. "Everyone relies on me for their answers on quality, for what they can and cannot accept," Gary said. "Protect my customers, that's my responsibility."
Gary Collins pauses to inspect a bin of freshly-machined carburetors while making his production floor rounds. After more than 23 years of experience working in nearly every area of the fuel systems department, he is an authority on problem solving for both management and production workers. "Putting out fires is basically all I do," Gary said about his day-to-day role in the factory.
Reflected in one of the many overhead mirrors throughout the factory, Gary Collins makes his rounds to check on the various production lines within his department. Despite his hands-on approach within the factory, he spends most of his time using various software and hardware systems to measure and analyze the many aspects of production quality, making his job somewhat solitary within the bustling factory. "It's not my job to be a liked individual. . . I'm kind of an enforcer," Gary said.