In the wake of a deadly crane accident in Houston last week which killed four men, the Houston Chronicle profiles crane operators and how they achieve their operating status. It is very demanding work including long hours and lengthy separations from families, but can also be very lucrative as well with some workers making up to $100,000 a year. With the job also comes the responsibility of being responsible for moving tons and tons worth of building materials which can come at a high cost. Already this year 13 people have been killed in construction crane related accidents, and estimates say that 22 people a year die in that fashion.
Rocky Strength, one of four workers killed in Friday’s accident, worked as a crane builder, a job that frequently took him away from home. His mother, Lisa Schneider, said she occasionally started cooking elaborate weekend meals at her Santa Fe home only to get telephone calls from her son announcing that he had abruptly departed for an out-of-state job. "Hey," she said, "give me a heads-up."
"Once he got into the job — it was a thrill-seeking job — he enjoyed it," she said. "A lot of people can’t do it. He was very proud of it."
Ballard said he occasionally worked out-of-state jobs three months at a time, an assignment length he considers typical of the industry. On those jobs, he typically would live with other workers in motels, or, sometimes, rent an apartment.
"The money is better," he said of those jobs. "They make a lot more money on the East and West coasts."
Such far-traveling workers are called "boomers," — a wry wordplay on stretching out a crane’s boom.
Booming union operators typically can work in any city they can find a job. Permission to do so generally is granted by the union local in question, Ballard said. "We’ve sent people to Kuwait," he said. "We even sent them to the Soviet Union. They had to live in a men’s camp, a work camp, because there wasn’t anything else around."
"We’re professionals. This is what we do for a living. We know these cranes inside out."