Incorporated in the midst of The Great Depression over eighty years ago, PSC Crane & Rigging has established a reputation for its abilities to safely move large pieces of machinery, sculptures, mechanical units and other items – in some cases weighing hundreds of tons.
~
The company achieves this with the utmost respect for safety, efficiency and skilled craftsmanship. The company handles everything from ‘power-on to power-off,’ plant relocations, decommissioning and plant shut-down maintenance. PSC Crane & Rigging prides itself on its abilities to dealing with all industrial maintenance needs for clients when they need them, twenty-four hours a day, even on weekends and holidays.
“Our range of expertise in the crane & rigging industry has always been one of our strong suits,” says Earl Sever IV (Randy), executive vice president of business development for the company. “It has grown and become much larger in terms of capacity in the range of services that we provide and distances that we cover geographically over the last twenty years.”
PSC holds a number of national accounts with established blue chip clients such as American multinational appliance manufacturer Whirlpool Corporation, Japan’s Honda Motor Co. and German multinational conglomerate Siemens. Taking on projects coast-to-coast, PSC Crane & Rigging has also performed work in Canada, Mexico and even China as clients often provide PSC with the ability to work in other countries.
“One of our customers had a large Dynamometer they wanted to disassemble, shut down, package, ship to China, reassemble and power back on,” says Sever. “So we took it from a power-off state to a power-on state and handled everything in-between.”
The company was recently responsible for the successful installation of a large tandem press line at the Tesla Motors plant in California. PSC has successfully built a reputation across various industries throughout the nation for their ability to handle multi-modal, turn-key projects. They are involved in every stage from initial planning all the way through project execution.
Now in its fourth generation of family ownership, PSC Crane & Rigging was founded by Randy and Jim Sever’s great-grandfather Earl Sever Sr. The company has evolved considerably over the years, but its commitment to quality, service and safety have never wavered.
PSC Crane & Rigging was founded in 1933 in Piqua, Ohio, during one of the worst years of the Great Depression. Prior to forming the company, Earl Sever Sr. was a linesman who brought electricity to rural residences. Once the depression hit, few could afford electricity, and finding work was difficult. Turning the challenge into an opportunity, Earl Sever Sr. was soon involved in the demolition business.
“He would tear down structures and sell steel for scrap value, and that’s how he started generating income. Hence the name “Piqua Steel Company,” says Sever. Randy studied civil engineering at Tri State University and then transferred to The Ohio State University. Following college he worked for a large home-building firm for three years, acquiring considerable knowledge along the way before joining the family-led business twenty years ago.
When the Second World War began, Earl Sever Sr. retrofitted factories involved in the war effort. At the conclusion of WWII, he was involved in transforming many of these factories back to civilian manufacturing production and relocated Lear Avia to Piqua, Ohio. He then expanded further – with the help of his son, Earl Sever Jr. – into structural steel, fabrication and structural steel erection. Earl Sever III then joined the company with a primary focus on crane rental and machinery moving.
Today, with a staff of approximately 125 full-time employees, PSC Crane & Rigging continues the long-standing commitment to quality set forth by Randy’s great-grandfather.
In addition to locations in Piqua and Columbus in Ohio, the company now has its most recent location in Houston, Texas, which is instrumental in the company’s special projects division serving petrochemical, refining and power generation sectors, as considerable amounts of equipment comes through the Port of Houston.
It provides the highest-quality professional machinery moving, rigging and crane rental services. PSC Crane & Rigging works for clients in a range of sectors including automotive, petrochemical, energy, manufacturing, appliance, food and beverage and power generation. It boasts all the necessary tools, equipment and skilled staff. Among the company’s capabilities are CCO trained operators with certified riggers and millwrights. PSC has also recently added a 165 ton crane, two (2) 30 ton forklifts, a 700 ton gantry system and 20 additional lines of Goldhofer hydraulic platform trailers.
Experts in heavy machinery moving and heavy specialized hauling, PSC Crane & Rigging’s diverse range of services enable the company to handle a variety of challenging projects. From relocating “a small single lathe at a local tool and die machine shop to relocating an entire factory worldwide,” PSC can handle the task at hand. All assignments are handled with the utmost care and respect for customer timelines and the company takes pride in working with clients to ensure all projects are completed as seamlessly as possible. Blending an experienced workforce with state of the art equipment, PSC Crane & Rigging has expanded their services into safely lifting and transporting large transformers, vessels, turbines, etc. weighing millions of pounds for the power generating and petrochemical industries.
The company’s industrial rigging and press assembly services division works with customers from precise initial planning to assembly. This division is backed by years of first-hand experience, ensuring consistent quality installations. The team regularly takes on large projects, including the turn-key installation of hydraulic stamping presses, injection mold presses, transfer presses, mechanical stamping presses, and accessory press component installations, such as feeder systems, stackers and de-stackers. PSC’s range of capabilities cover many other areas as well, including crane rental, pre-cast and structural steel erection, on-site field fabrication, engineered lift plans and designs, overhead crane erection, plant relocations, warehousing / equipment storage, power generation installation services and industrial plant shutdown maintenance.
At PSC Crane & Rigging, safety is not just a buzzword; it is a way of life throughout the entire organization. It has received numerous awards over the years for its safety initiatives – including presentations from the Specialized Carriers and Rigging Association (SC&RA) in 2006 and 2009. PSC views safety as a company-wide culture based on the right behavior and attitude in which employees look out for one another, customers and vendors.
“Safety is paramount from the top down throughout the organization – driven from the top level of management of the organization,” says Sever. “We don’t believe in taking shortcuts; we do not put our employees, subcontractors or customers in harm’s way, and we do everything we can through ongoing safety training and education to ensure we are on the cutting edge as it relates to safety. By communicating properly and educating our field staff, we keep everyone safe and make sure everyone goes home at the end of the day.”
Other core values of the company include providing world-class, precision skilled craftsmanship, industrial maintenance and superior rigging solutions to its customers. The team devises solutions through precise planning and scheduling, reliability, innovation, the latest technologies, proper training, quick customer emergency response time and outstanding client service. PSC Crane & Rigging has achieved a large repeat clientele through honesty, integrity and ingenuity, all of which have been instilled from Earl Sr. down through the generations.
“While we aggressively pursue sales, we are very selective about who we do business with,” states Sever. “Once we get our foot in the door, we tend to nurture that account – maintain and grow that account. Many of our customers are twenty-five plus year accounts.”
These include well-known clients such as Honda, which saw PSC take on work for the company at its plant in Ohio and at facilities in Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia. Siemens had PSC handle moving an entire 150,000 square foot manufacturing facility to Mexico, while their work for Whirlpool over the years has seen the company move equipment to Mexico and back again to the U.S.
“We have our sights set on continued growth for the next several years to come – properly managed growth, and we’ve been very fortunate,” says Sever. PSC Crane & Rigging looks forward to working with customers long into the future and building on the same commitment to quality, customer service and safety established by founder Earl Sever Sr. back in 1933.
“We started off as a small, family-owned company, and we continue to grow in a well-managed way. We are selective as to who we do business with, and it’s not all about quantity; it’s about quality. It’s about working for good-quality companies and people who want to work with us.”
PSC Crane & Rigging is an 82 year old, four generation, family-owned business specializing in all types of heavy industrial moving, heavy transport, engineered super lifts, turn-key multi-modal projects, rail & barge cargo, industrial maintenance, equipment line installations, plant relocations, fabrication, steel erection & crane rental services, and the company serves the automotive, manufacturing, appliance, food & beverage, pharmaceutical, steel, paper, power generation, chemical, steel and petroleum industries.
