Hawkeye Insulation Specialists is looking for an Industrial Insulator Helper: someone who wants to learn an industrial trade from the ground up and can be counted on every shift while they learn it.

To be considered, you bring all of this:

• You show up, every time — on time every shift, including 10- to 12-hour days and the out-of-town weeks when a plant has scheduled its shutdown around our crew

• You're conscientious about quality — you measure before you cut, and a seam that's off bothers you enough to redo it

• You can take physical work in hard conditions — ladders, fall protection, loads up to 75 pounds, heat next to steam lines, cold in refrigerated rooms and industrial environments

• You follow rules you didn't write — every plant has its own safety and sanitation rules, and you follow all of them without being reminded

• You want to learn the trade — no insulation experience needed, but two years from now you want to be an insulator, not still a helper

Hawkeye Insulation Specialists insulates industrial process piping and equipment, with ammonia refrigeration as our specialty. From our base in Cedar Rapids, food plants, paper mills, and manufacturers call us when a line has to be insulated right and fast, and we're often there the same day. Eleven people, foremen with decades in the trade, and some who have been here twenty-nine years. Helpers learn on the job from the people who do the work, with no classroom hand-off and no guessing.

What the Work Actually Looks Like

Shifts run up 10 to 12 hours. Some weeks you'll be out of town on a plant shutdown, staying in a hotel, because the plant planned its whole shutdown around our crew walking in Monday morning. Some days you're working next to steam lines in July. Other days you're in a refrigerated room at a food plant where the cold is in your fingers by 9 am.

You'll climb ladders, scaffolds, aerial lifts, and work at heights with fall protection. You'll carry insulation and sheets of metal jacketing up to 75 pounds.

Every plant has its own rules, and you understand it's vital to uphold them: necessary safety equipment, boot washes, sign-in logs, areas you can't enter without an escort. You follow every one of them, every time. Plants keep calling us because they never have to worry about our crews.

Your foreman will check your work quality. For the first few months, some will come back to you to do over. That's how you learn, and it's why a pipe we finished years ago still looks right today.

Right now the crew works a lot of overtime and plenty of Saturdays. Overtime is anything over 40 hours and pays time-and-a-half, double time on Sundays. Hiring you is part of how we bring the Saturdays down.

If ten- to twelve-hour days and a week in a hotel sound like a deal-breaker, this job will wear you out, and may not be for you. If you read that and thought, "I've done harder," keep going.

Who Belongs Here

• Show up ready means you're at the shop or the hotel lobby before the foreman, with the same attitude at hour eleven that you had at hour one. We can teach you to insulate. We can't teach you a desire to learn.

• Safe on every site means you treat each plant's rules like they're ours. A general contractor at one paper mill thanked our team in writing for bringing safety, quality, and production every time we step on site. The newest helper is part of that.

• We believe perfection means a seam that's off gets redone before anyone has to ask. One of our crews rebuilt a tank end cap at a customer's plant because the first one wasn't good enough to put our name on. Nobody told them to.

• Easy to have on site means you move your material out of the pipefitters' way and wait your turn on the scaffold. Our scope is one piece of a bigger project, and the other trades notice who makes their day easier.

• Handle it means if you notice the material is short for tomorrow, you say so tonight.

• Trustworthy and knowledgeable means you say "I don't know, let me ask" instead of guessing on a measurement. Plants take our word on their systems, and that word starts with the newest person on the crew.

Why Hawkeye

• Hawkeye pays 90% of your health insurance premium

• Paid vacation and holidays, plus a company-matched retirement plan

• Dental, vision, and Aflac available

• Travel compensation when a job is more than 60 miles out

• Paid OSHA 10 training

• Foremen who have been insulating industrial systems for decades, and who will teach you

• Steady work. There are very few industrial insulators in this area, and plants call us first.

• People stay. A couple of years, ten years, twenty-nine years.

• Show up on time and ready every shift, including 10- to 12-hour days and out-of-town plant shutdowns.

• Measure, cut, fit, and install pipe and equipment insulation, vapor barrier, metal and PVC jacketing, and banding, until your foreman no longer needs to check the work.

• Run and care for the beader, crimper, bending brake, banding tools, and hand and power tools, and keep your safety gear in working order.

• Follow each plant's safety, sanitation, and access rules every time, so customers can trust our crews without someone watching.

• Stage material and keep the work area clean and stocked, so the foreman spends the day insulating instead of hunting for things.

• Redo any cut or seam that isn't right before anyone has to ask.

• Work around the other trades on site so their day goes better too.

Required:

• Valid driver's license and reliable transportation.

• Able to pass a pre-employment drug screen.

• Able to lift 75 lbs, climb ladders, and work at heights with provided safety gear.

• Able to work in hot and cold industrial environments.

• Available for shifts up to 10 to 12 hours, weekends, occasional out-of-town travel, and busy holiday work season.

• Local to Cedar Rapids and authorized to work in the U.S.

You do NOT need:

• Insulation experience. We train you on the job.

• OSHA 10. We pay for it in your first month.

• A college degree.

Hawkeye Insulation Specialists insulates industrial process piping and equipment, with ammonia refrigeration as our specialty. Food plants, paper mills, and manufacturers around Cedar Rapids call us when a line has to be insulated before it sweats or burns, and we're usually there the same day or first thing tomorrow. Customers tell us they never have to worry about our crews' safety. Eleven people build their lives on this company, and some have been here twenty-nine years. We're adding helpers so the crew is deep enough to give Saturdays back.