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If anyone wants to find Kenny Rathier among the thousands of people who are on the URI campus everyday, all they have to do is just look for the tallest object they can see.
At the base of it is Rathier, seated in a cramped cab of a massive construction crane that soars 240 feet in the air.
These days, Crane Operator Rathier is the center of attention, the hub of the complicated and potentially dangerous process of erecting the steel columns, girders and decking for the huge Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences or CBLS, an acronym that just about everyone in the college is comfortable with by now.
From 7 in the morning until 3:30, Rathier deftly guides the monstrous machine that hoists steel from storage areas and flatbed trucks and places it delicately wherever the ironworkers need it next (the columns, braces and girders that form the frame of the new building are called collectively “steel” but the men who handle and assemble the steel are called ironworkers.)
To even the most casual observer, Rathier’s job must seem stressful—and it can be.
“Sometimes I go home mentally drained,” he admits, noting that complete and constant attention is required to do his job safely.
Rathier has been a crane operator for eight years and he is happy to say he has never had anyone get hurt while he was operating a crane. That’s even more significant when you consider that the crews that work with a crane—riggers and ironworkers—change with every construction site.
It would be nice to have the same crew from job site to job site but that is not how the construction trades work, he adds. “I’ve got a good crew here,” he says referring to the CBLS project.
Working with the crane are riggers who prepare the steel for hoisting. At the other end are ironworkers who guide Rathier either by hand signals or radio in positioning the steel.
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Rathier is in Boston-based Local 4, International Union of Operating Engineers. It took him years to get to his position.
Rathier started out as an ironworker and then took a job driving oversized equipment. Eventually he decided he wanted to become a crane operator but the company he worked for valued his skills as a driver for oversized loads and didn’t agree with his wishes.
“So I went out and bought all the books,” he recalls. After a lot of studying he took the crane operators’ examination and got his Rhode Island license. Subsequently he got a similar license in Massachusetts.
“I had the licenses but no experience,” he explains and so he took a job as a crane oiler. The oiler is responsible for maintenance of a crane on a job site. After four years of that he gained the necessary experience.
Today, Rathier is capable of operating cranes of all sizes—the one at the CBLS site is capable of lifting 250 tons and is owned by Builders Resource Corp.
The crane operation at CBLS is termed a production job, meaning that except for breaks, Rathier is operating his machine the entire shift. These days the operation
is quite efficient but it did not start off that way because there is a learning curve with the men assigned to the operation.
“We start off slow and get used to the (new) people and make adjustments,” he explains.
As long as Rathier can see the crews he’s working with, hand signals work
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Crane operator finds working on CBLS an uplifting experience
"These days, Crane Operator Rathier is the center of attention, the hub of the complicated and potentially dangerous process of erecting the steel columns, girders and decking for the huge Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences or CBLS, an acronym that just about everyone in the college is comfortable with by now."
By RUDI HEMPE
CELS News Editor & Reporter
[Story starts on the left below the image]
well. But when he has to hoist loads to an area that is out of his line of sight, radios have to be used—that can be good or bad, depending on how well the reception is. “We go slowly,” he adds.
Each shift begins with a thorough inspection of the crane by him and the oiler. There are inspection check lists and visual inspections. ‘The cables are like a machine—they are always moving and twisting.”
Inside his cab are charts and instruments. The charts are consulted for different loads and boom angles. The instruments monitor the boom angles, height of the tip and weight of the loads. And of course there are myriad control levers and foot pedals.
Rathier has worked on a wide variety of building projects including some on the MIT and Brandeis campuses. He has worked on a large number of school buildings as well.
At age 50, Rathier says he is still exploring more career opportunities.
“I would like to get a stamp on my license for electric cranes,” he says referring to the tall cranes that are commonly used to construct high rises. These cranes construct their own support structure as they go up.
For now, however, he is content with his job at URI and expects to be here until the crane is no longer needed—all steel is supposed to be erected by the end of October.
Some days there is more stress than others, he noted, and at the end of the day, he enjoys returning to his Glendale, RI home on the shore of Spring Lake.
At 7 a.m. the next morning, he’s back on the job. Asked if he has ever had any close calls, he says he has had “some moments of concern. You say a prayer each morning that no one gets hurt.”
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