INDUSTRIES

Scott Henry: Doing Better, On the Job and Off

For TikTok star Scott Henry, building a better future doesn’t just start with machines. His “Be Better” philosophy impacts how he operates on the job and in his personal life.

Scott Henry has never been afraid to ask questions.

“Whenever I was on a job, I was the annoying guy who was asking every operator, "How do you run this? Teach me how to run this,” he says.

That curiosity has served him well, both in his former career in the construction industry as a superintendent and now as a TikTok star.

Scott’s start in construction was through his dad, who was in the industry his whole life and passed a love of heavy equipment on to Scott at an early age. That love continues today, and Scott’s natural curiosity and willingness to learn made job sites an exciting place for him. That’s why he was thrilled to get a tour of the Caterpillar Edward J. Rapp Visitor’s Center and run some equipment.

of

“[You’re] making it easier to work on machines and easier to maintain them so you can actually run a piece of equipment from a remote site,” says Scott. “You could actually be in a building offsite and run a piece of equipment. The technology is so cool and it's come such a long way rather than being in an open cab skid steer with barely any functions at all.”

Just like construction is near to Scott’s heart, there’s something else that’s just as important to him that he became an advocate for in his superintendent role: anti-bullying. Scott noticed that there were some stereotypes about the type of people working in the construction industry that could lead to friction on the job.

“It's a weird stigma that we have that we’re rough, we're tough, and we don't give a crap about anything,” Scott notes. “If you come in and you show any kind of weakness, you get picked on for it, and I'm an emotional guy. I was like that with my crews: you work long hours, and a lot of the time, me and my crew are away from our families. We're the only family that we have on this job site.”

Scott took that same attitude and openness to social media, where he quickly gained over 2 million followers on TikTok and has launched the ‘Be Better’ initiative to combat online bullying.

“I was sticking up for someone who was being bullied and I used the phrase, “just be better people,” and it stuck from that,” he says.

So, what’s next for Scott? Besides continuing to use his social platform to spread positivity, he’ll be enjoying his reign as the champion of the second season of Tough As Nails that aired earlier this year. You can check him out and see him operate some Cat^® equipment here.