Dearborn Cranes Serving Army
Dearborn Cranes Serving Army
Dearborn Cranes Serving Army
11, and paratroopers from the division are currently in Kuwait, among thousands of troops amassed
their orders might be delayed while the company focused its attention on Fort Bragg. Dearborn Crane's 50 employees were happy to cooperate. John Lyvers, a service technician, spent three months at the base last spring completing the project. He and three other Dearborn Crane employees worked 10-hour days seven days a week in a rush to finish the job. In the months after Sept. 11, security on the base was especially tight and the level of activity was high. Lyvers and other workers were subject to frequent vehicle searches and regular check-ins. They were also subject to working with aircraft whirring overhead and artillery exploding nearby. "It was intense," he said. "It was a little bitty taste of what (the soldiers) do every day." It was also rewarding, Lyvers and Tony Strobl, the sales engineer and project manager for the job, agreed. Strobl, an Army veteran, had worked on military projects before, but none were of the same magnitude or significance. "Our cranes are there for direct support for first-response forces," Strobl said. "It's a good feeling supporting them." Even Dearborn Crane employees who weren't directly involved in the contract shared that sense of pride. Since 1995, the privately held company has operated under an open-book management policy and profit-sharing plan. Employees meet regularly to go over the books and discuss the state of the company. While the Fort Bragg project was under way, those meetings were punctuated by discussions of the importance of the task. "The fact that we knew people's lives depended on our work meant a lot," Dunville said. "I think we took even more special care." While the job itself was rewarding, it was not always smooth sailing. Working with the government was something of a learning experience for Dearborn Crane. The
A Humvee equipped with parachutes is suspended at Fort Bragg, N.C., by a crane constructed by Mishawakabased Dearborn Crane & Engineering . The cranes are used to load the heavy vehicles onto pallets so they can be lifted into military airplanes and then parachuted into battle sites for use by soldiers in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division.
Photo provided
Dunville and Lyvers weren't prepared for how imposing Fort Bragg is. The word "fort" is deceptive: The 160,789-acre base -more than half the size of St. Joseph County -- is more like a selfcontained city, with its own 303-mile highway system.
company, founded as Dearborn Fabricating in 1947 in Dearborn, Mich., has long served major players in the private sector; its Mishawaka operations were established in 1955 after Studebaker Corp. merged with Packard Motor Car Co., one of Dearborn's biggest customers. In comparison to government contracts, serving the private sector is relatively simple, Dunville said. "Talking to the government is like speaking a foreign language," he added. "And you just have layer upon layer of people who need to approve things." Still, Dunville believes the government will be a good customer for Dearborn Crane, and employees now know they can be a capable supplier for the military. "When it's crunch time, time to defend the country, the equipment they need has got to work," Strobl said. "We all pulled together and gave the government a product they can use with no problem. "It was an honor to be a part of it."