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Look, up in the sky!

In downtown, the land of giant erector sets, crane operators are living the high life.

By PAUL SWIDER
Published August 2, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - Swinging in a pod 300 feet in the air, 11 hours a day is not the way most people earn a living, but Ricky Patino wouldn't have it any other way.

"The higher it is, the more interesting," said Patino, 36, an operator of one of two tower cranes being used to construct the 16-story Progress Energy building at First Avenue N and Third Street.

As more high-rises go up in the city, Patino has plenty of opportunities to get his thrills.

In addition to the two Progress cranes, another hangs over the condo development at 400 Beach Drive and an assortment of smaller cranes festoon construction sites throughout the downtown area.

Pedestrians' eyes are irresistibly drawn to watch the looming machines piece together the city's skyline.

Patino said he's not afraid of working at such a high altitude. He may not have time to be afraid, though, because from the beginning of the workday at 7 a.m., he is the nexus of activity as crews on the ground rely on him to lift, move and fly safe so they can get the equipment they need to do their jobs at the site. He says he's on the move the whole day.

"You have to be fast, but you have to be safe," said Patino, who has been operating cranes for 18 years, tower cranes for 10.

Responding to workers' demands for material, Patino also has to mind the other crane lest the two get tangled and drop a load. One of the leggy machines sits 330 feet in the air, the other 280, so the booms don't intersect, but the hoists and cables move through the same space so the operators have to be in constant radio contact.

"There's no mistakes, no excuses," Patino said. "A little piece of rebar, if you drop it 200 feet, it'll go right through you. We all want to go home every night."

Patino works for Bovis Lend Lease and is on loan to the general contractor of the Progress site, Brasfield and Gorrie. Builders usually lease cranes and sometimes operators with them, but Patino is a separate hire from the new AmQuip Corp. crane he runs. For the past few years in Florida and elsewhere, the crane business has been good.

"Right now, we're in high demand all over the country," said Scott Brandstadt of AmQuip's Birmingham, Ala., office. AmQuip has 90-some cranes in operation around the United States. "We're 100 percent booked through the end of the year."

In fact, the two cranes at the Progress site will start coming down in the next two months to be reassembled a few blocks south to bring All Children's Hospital's nine-story building out of the ground. Patino is also working on a building at Channelside and will follow its crane to the Signature condo project just down the street from the Progress site.

In addition to the high-wire act of tower cranes is an army of creeper cranes whose operators sit in a cab on the ground but move loads with a giant elbow in the air. From a tower, you have a bird's eye view of much of the site, but from a creeper, you have to rely more on directions.

"It's a little more difficult because you're operating in the blind," said Bob Steiner, president of Kelly Equipment, a Clearwater firm that has 125 cranes of various sizes and styles scattered around the eastern half of the country.

Steiner has three creepers on the All Children's site now, and another that's been converted into a kind of tower with a fixed 180-foot rig to build the 12-story Sage building at Fourth Street and Fourth Avenue S.

Creeper cranes are designed to move heavy loads, Steiner said, while towers are built to move lighter loads higher. A tower crane can pick up about 20,000 pounds, while a creeper can lift many times that, depending on how it's arranged. The 230-ton model at the Sage is a hybrid between the two.

Cranes can come in hundreds of configurations, Brandstadt said, with pricing schemes as much driven by demand as by the cost of the equipment itself. He didn't want to quote a number for the Progress machines, but Steiner said the Sage crane is going for $27,000 a month, which includes $10,000 for the operator's salary and benefits.

Patino said the money can be good, mainly because he has a good reputation but also because good safe crane fliers are in short supply. He picked up his skills on the job in Port Houston, Texas, but most operators have to go to school for the specialized skill of running a million-dollar machine with men's lives at stake. When they're good, they're appreciated.

"When people are scared of the operator, they can't trust him," said Michael "Rock" Walton, with Bay Erectors and Rigging, who assembles cranes but also works at the Progress site helping move precast concrete pieces. "Some of those guys just do what they want, like they're running the job. It's good to have somebody like Ricky who knows what they're doing up there."

Patino starts his day early because it takes him 15 minutes just to climb to his perch. There's only room for the operator and a small cooler with lunch. His cab is air conditioned and computerized, but it lacks plumbing, meaning he must improvise some of life's necessities and wait out others. Once seated, he's there for the day.

If inclement weather blows in, ground crews head for shelter but the crane operators just sit and wait. The cranes are electrically grounded so lightning is not an issue, yet winds will push the crane around. Depending on the load and movement, even in good weather a crane will pitch, lean or sway several feet.

Patino has two joysticks to operate the crane. On the left side, he controls swing, or pivoting around the crane's vertical axis, and trolley, which moves the block forward and backward on the boom. The right side controls up and down movement of the block that holds the load. With those three axes of motion and variable speed controls, a skilled operator can place a pallet of materials within inches of its preferred destination, but will rely on workers to talk them in.

"You only got so many feet to get a piece in" Walton said. "They have to come around easy to get it in."

"You have to be gentle," Patino said.

Patino is originally from Mexico but has lived and worked all around the country. He said is settling here and buying a house in Haines City because there is so much work for him in the Tampa Bay area.

"You're going to be seeing a lot more cranes around here," he said.

Paul Swider can be reached at 892-2271 or pswider@sptimes.com or by participating in itsyourtimes.com.

[Last modified August 1, 2006, 23:21:46]