Bucyrus – A small area company moves big things here and abroad

E-Crane International, 236 S. Sandusky St., is a state-of-the-art firm that helps design and implement E-Cranes® using equilibrium to move heavy objects. “We’re a small, but growing company,” said Mark Osborne, president.

Operating from a modest office downtown, Osborne’s staff of eight full-time employees works on projects involving large cranes in places from California to Venezuela. Three of them are service engineers.

“We began in 2000 in Marion, but moved here two years later,” Osborne said. To date the company has 30 projects and a full slate of work through the first quarter of 2008. “We have a small group of people but we do a lot of projects. We have one going right now that’s a $6.3 million project. It’s near Tampa with Progress Energy”, Osborne said. That project involves 18,000-ton coal barges and a 500-ton crane. “That one is a big project,” Osborne said.

Other projects include Marietta, Ohio; Wilmington, N.C. and the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. “We work with a company in Belgium called Indusign. They actually build the cranes that we use. But we use a lot of other parts made in America,” he said. The process is all about equilibrium. “We use the equilibrium principle. That’s where the ‘E’ in E-Cranes® comes from. It’s a very simple, but unique, principle.”

The cabs of the cranes are ergonomically designed and have a joystick feature. The company has a local client, American Electric Power. “We have six cranes for them and two for Cargill. We have a good working relationship with AEP,” Osborne noted. “Our business is expanding. We are making a name for ourselves in the material bulk handling business. We work on inland waterways and oceans.”

Source: Bucyrus Telegraph Forum.com, 19th March 2007