Apple Valley Chamber President Ed Kearney was invited to take photos in advance as well as an exclusive chamber meeting with Nate Jasper Director of Business Development to learn more about their operations and tomorrow’s unveiling of this giant 1 of only 3 similar cranes in the entire US.
VIC’S CRANE & HEAVY HAUL has purchased one of only three giant 1200 ton cranes in the country. It has a ballast counterweight of 1.83 million pounds and 3 million pounds weight when configured. It can rise to a max 722 feet. In the photo below, it is a little more than half its potential height.
When you go near the college DCTC, you will see the towering crane along 42 just before hwy 52. This Thursday they are having a private event with nearly 1200 people RSVP’d. IT IS NOT OPEN TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC as it will include their customers, contractors, developers and their hundreds of employees with a few dignitaries.
The massive crane will be taken apart Friday morning to transport it to a job site for 7 months on all those trucks and reassembled on-site. It is the largest crane throughout most of the central US with the other 2 on the coasts. moving the 3 million pounds of crane and counterweight ballast is massive. This brings new larger development possibilities to Minnesota. They are the largest crane company in Minnesota with several hundred employees.
At Thursday’s event, they will use this giant 1200 ton crane to lift a 600 ton sister-crane to show its power.
It was shipped from Germany and had to go through a tropical storm and two hurricanes. Landing in New Orleans, it took over 70 trucks to move it here to be assembled. They also were arriving near New Orleans just when the east coast dock workers strike was ending or else they would have had to go through Canada. Even their smaller crane (one of over 100 cranes they own) helped build US BANK STADIUM and even put the final signature sign up. They use 40 of their cranes at Flint Hills refinery on a regular basis. They recently have crane jobs at the new META project as well as the new academic buildings and new hockey arena under construction and half completed at Univ. St. Thomas plus bridges, high-rises etc.
VIC’S has jobs from Duluth and all the way down to windmill division jobs as far south as Arkansas. This $12 million massive crane gives them exciting more growth potential. They are an ESOP company which is employee owned as well as a union with the operators themselves whom they called the most respected and experienced operators and engineers in the industry.
