Every general contractor and heavy equipment manufacturer needs a set of big arms. Marcal Lifting Products Co. is working to cover all of their lifting needs.
The Missouri division of Alton, Ill.-based Marcal Rope & Rigging Co., Marcal Lifting Products entered the Springfield market 10 years ago when its operators kept hearing about local contractors and manufacturers ordering lifting products via catalogs. The company started with one staff member in a rented backroom at Ball Supply Co., and today it owns a retail site next door at 1456 E. Trafficway with a 5,700-square-foot warehouse and shop, and a staff of four managed by Steve Sanders, Marcal’s first Springfield employee.
The shop fabricates a range of lifting and rigging products from hoists to beams to chains – “anything involving overhead lifting or that can be attached to a hook on a crane,” Sanders says. Standard nylon slings, for instance, cost less than $100, and high-performance synthetic slings are priced above $1,000. The company also offers accessories to its lifting products, such as cable clamps or shackles manufactured by Tulsa, Okla.-based The Crosby Group.
Locally, its products are commonly found on construction sites such as the Mercy Orthopedic Hospital or in the hands of City Utilities servicemen in the field. Area clients include Paul Mueller Co., Empire District Electric Co., Springfield ReManufacturing Corp., Polar Tank Trailer, Ozark Crane Services Inc. and Carson-Mitchell Inc. Two notable projects where its equipment has been utilized are CU’s $697 million Southwest II power plant and the $57 million 60-65 highway interchange improvements.
Construction slideMarcal Rope & Rigging started in Alton, Ill., in 1970 servicing the coal mine and industrial and construction industries in southern Illinois and eastern Missouri. Founder Dick Miller’s son Tom is now owner and president over its four locations, including operations in Metropolis, Ill., and St. Louis.
Tom Miller says he worked closely with Sanders in the early days of Marcal’s presence in Springfield, a move cemented by an early agreement with Mueller Co., when it became the stainless steel manufacturer’s supplier of crane ropes.
More recently, the recession hit the construction industry hard, and Marcal wasn’t unscathed.
“For whatever reason, I think it may be because of our diverse sales base, we had record sales years in 2008 and 2009,” Miller says. “For the second half of 2010, all of 2011 and the start of 2012 were the opposite of that.”
Revenues for the 48-employee firm totaled nearly $9 million across its four locations in 2008 and 2009, and after falling from the high water mark by roughly 15 percent for 2010 and 2011, Miller says he expects sales to reach $9 million again this year.
“When you are forced to deal with a situation such as revenues falling like they were, you become more lean, you streamline things and become more conscious of the things that didn’t matter so much before. We are keeping a better eye on payroll, keeping a better eye on inventory, keeping a better eye on margins,” Miller says, noting the company places a big emphasis on service.
“Anybody can be a supply house. Anybody can buy something and resell it to someone else. It’s those companies that go the extra step to provide that service with value that really grow.”
Miller projects companywide revenues to rise by 15 percent in 2013. Locally, 2012 revenue is expected to close at $1 million, up roughly 5 percent compared to 2011 and flat compared to 2008 and 2009, according to Sanders.
To avoid sales dips, Sanders says he worked to expand offerings to a range of rural utility customers and by selling more ratchet straps to over-the-road trucking companies such as Peterbilt of Springfield. Sanders says wire rope slings, winch lines and nylon slings are the top sellers for the company.
Inside the crane worldSpringfield-based general contractor Carson-Mitchell Inc. has been a customer for roughly 10 years. Doug Carson of Carson-Mitchell says the high-rise construction specialist has purchased more than $60,000 in rigging equipment from Marcal Lifting since it arrived on the scene in early 2002.
“They’re the only go-to guys in town,” says Carson, whose company’s project list includes CoxHealth’s Meyer orthopedic and Hulston cancer centers. “I’ve been really pleased with their service. In other words, I don’t have to order stuff from out of town.”
In the Marcal shop, employees hand-sew nylon slings to client specifications, and they weave and clamp wire rope slings by hand to fit the load needs of particular jobs. Often, they’re busy repairing well-used equipment, too.
“We service what we sell, and that makes a big difference,” Sanders says, adding the company strives to be flexible to the needs of its customers in the field and can inspect equipment on site.
“In the crane world, you have a lot of variables that come into play when you go to lift something and put it on a building or stand something up, whatever the case may be,” says Carson, whose company uses a variety of Marcal slings and shackles. “They’ve offered up products when I didn’t have a good idea of what I needed. They’ve been really helpful and adaptable in that regard.”
