OST got another opportunity to work in the film industry 20 years later when Wild, Wild West with Will Smith, Kevin Kline and Salma Hayek was being made. Much of the movie took place on a train, and the various train cars had to be transported throughout the western United States for filming in different locations. OST has trailers with rails on them that can be driven onto existing railroad crossings, straddle the tracks, and then put the trailer rails down so that train cars can be easily loaded on. The engine that was used in the movie was originally used to pull the train carrying President Abraham Lincoln’s body to Illinois for burial. OST transported the engine back to Massachusetts where it is stored once filming was completed. OST had six to seven trucks committed to this project for many months, said Denny.

OST, which employs 70-plus people and operates out of its yard in Ventura, owns 17 cranes. The company recently purchased the first Link-Belt 3250,

250-ton ATC (all terrain crane) in Southern California. The crane is equipped with 233.1 feet of full power seven-section boom. A 43.3 ft. 2-piece off-settable fly with an additional four 19.7 feet of fly inserts gives the crane a total of 358 feet of maximum tip height. A key feature of the crane is the automatic load compensator that maintains a constant radius during lift off. This new crane allows OST to do projects with a lot of heavy picks, like loading industrial electrical transformers, Denny says.

OST purchased the Link-Belt 3250 ATC from Mark Lomas of Nixon-Egli Equipment Co. Denny says that Nixon-Egli is “one of the best” when it comes to equipment dealers. He says that Mark, along with Dave Heitmiller, the service manager at Nixon-Egli, take care of every detail for OST, making sure “everything gets done. They just makes things happen, before and after the sale with startup and delivering the crane and product support when needed,” Denny says.

Denny says that for the past couple months that OST has owned the Link-Belt 3250 ATC, they’ve used it for several projects: to unload a transformer at Port Hueneme, to move an oil drilling rig, with the man basket so that the towers at a steam generator plant could be inspected, and to hang pre-stressed concrete panels.

On a typical oil drilling rig move, OST will have two cranes and eight trucks on the project. They will have both cranes at the current rig site. As the drilling company’s crew takes the rig apart piece by piece, the crane operators lift each piece onto a trailer, which is transported to the new location where the rig is put back together piece by piece once the cranes are moved to the new site. OST will have 40 to 50 trailers on the projects which usually take three to four days to complete, depending on how far the oil rig is being moved. Many of these projects take place in Ventura. Denny says there are only five companies in California that do this type of work.

OST has a drilling rig project coming up which involves receiving the pieces of a new rig that was shipped from China to Houston, Texas. Once OST receives the pieces of the new rig at their yard, they will transport it and assemble it for their customer.

Another one of OST’s customers manufactures an “exotic type of vessels,” Denny says. The company ships the vessels all over the world, and OST loads the cargo at the customer’s facilities and then transports it to Ontario airport where it offloads the cargo into “one of the biggest cargo freight haulers in the world.”

Denny says that one of the companies biggest challenges over the years is finding qualified people who want to work hard and have the skills required for the work. OST does
a lot of training of
its people, hiring
both through word
of mouth and through the
local teamsters and operating engineers union halls. Having enough qualified people is often the only thing that keeps the company from further growth.

But the company does continue to grow and will continue to go wherever the work takes them, Denny says. They typically work throughout the state of California and in Nevada. Growth is one of the reasons they purchased the new Link-Belt, and they have two more on order. Each year the company purchases equipment to replace older pieces and to gear up for growth. 

Denny oversees all the company’s operations and goes on location to projects. Don works in OST’s office. Ron manages the field work and runs cranes 60 percent of the time. “He’s one of the best crane operators we have,” Denny says.

For more information call
(805) 643-9963.