Russ Erlinger Crane Service, founded in 1981, is a family-owned heavy-duty resource for crane rentals, rigging, and hauling in the Midwest. With Hunter and Holden Hillesheim now leading the company, Erlinger's reputation for outstanding service has allowed its growth and success, servicing clients in Illinois, Missouri, and beyond with a fleet of top brand heavy-duty cranes.
Photo courtesy of Russ Erlinger Crane
To operate cranes and handle rigging properly, the Erlinger team — all of whom are members of the IOUE — learned most of their specialized skills at the Local IOUE training centers.
After joining what is today Russ Erlinger Crane Service in Lebanon, Ill., in 1988, Rich Hillesheim advanced through the company to later become its president and owner. Along the way, the firm's success continued to grow as it became well-regarded for its outstanding service in the greater St. Louis area, where it worked with clients on both sides of the Mississippi River.
Not only did Erlinger Crane Service become popular among customers in southern Illinois and Missouri, its reputation also has allowed the business to extend its operations to other parts of the Midwest and beyond.
In the process, it has become a cornerstone in the crane, rigging and hauling industry since its formation in 1981.
After Hillesheim semi-retired from his role within the company a few years ago, he entrusted its leadership to his sons, Hunter and Holden. By infusing young talent into the leadership of the crane service, the elder Hillesheim has ensured its success for many years to come.
Hunter Hillesheim serves as Erlinger's vice president, a position he has held for the last three years; his younger brother, Holden, joined the firm at the beginning of this year as its director of operations.
"I would say that 60 percent of our business is in Illinois and 40 percent in Missouri," said Hillesheim. "We are over in Missouri every day, and we are located only 20 minutes from downtown St. Louis."
Several Factors Contribute to Growth
Although it does not sell cranes, Erlinger has long been noted for offering bare crane rentals from its assortment of top brands of heavy-duty machines, including all-terrains, rough-terrains, crawlers, truck cranes, telehandlers and carry decks.
"We have everything from 15-ton carry decks to 550-ton all-terrain cranes and everything in between," said Hillesheim. "We even perform a bit of small dirt work for a few customers where we use a mini-track hoe and a skid steer for trenching."
But, he said, "Our forte at Erlinger is manned and maintained work where we send a crane operator out to a job site with most equipment each day."
Photo courtesy of Russ Erlinger Crane Service
Hillesheim explained that Erlinger currently has 25 full-time operators and, to supplement that number when a job requires additional crane professionals, the company hires more from its Local 520 International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) halls.
Another key component of the crane company is the expert rigging services its team offers to handle and set heavy equipment and machinery, like HVAC units, as well as install pollution control systems and electrical transformers safely and efficiently.
As a result, according to Hillesheim, the company has "probably doubled in size twice" just in the last 10 years.
"We attribute that to Erlinger being family owned and dedicated to our work as we are here seven days a week to do whatever it takes," Hillesheim said. "Just like my dad always said, ‘Don't say no' to customers whenever they call — day or night."
Hillesheim added that another factor in Erlinger's growth has been the solid increase in construction in the greater St. Louis area over the last several years.
"The manufacturing plants around here are always expanding and there has been a lot of maintenance done to existing buildings," he said. "Plus, we do a lot of HVAC work, and we offer storage services at our lots here in Lebanon for those units. There are upwards of 100 air conditioners and air handling units in our yards at any given time."
To store all that HVAC equipment, not to mention the many different cranes and other machines it owns to carry out its work, Erlinger maintains three different yard spaces within the industrial park in Lebanon where its offices are located, about 30 mi. east of St. Louis.
"We have three acres at our main facility; two acres at a different site; and an additional three acres at a new lot that we just purchased last year that is fenced in and being filled right now in preparation for a 2025 project in St. Louis," Hillesheim said.
The company's day-to-day work radius extends 200 mi. from the metropolitan region, he noted, although Erlinger currently has a crane working on a project in New Mexico that is a bare rental, meaning that the contractor is operating it rather than one of Hillesheim's people. Those types of rentals make up approximately 15 to 20 percent of Erlinger's business, he said.
As far as the equipment brands it rents, the company has long carried Manitowoc and Grove machines but is also transitioning over to the Japanese-manufactured Tadano line of cranes, as well.
"We learned that we liked the Tadanos for their reliability and cost of maintenance," said Hillesheim. "We work with a few area distributors to purchase machines, with our primary dealers being RTL Equipment in Iowa, and CraneWorks out of St. Louis, both of which are Tadano distributors. Each one also does maintenance on the equipment for us."
Another sign of Erlinger's surge in popularity among contractors is the fact that its crane fleet has more than doubled in the last 10 years.
Crane, Rigging Specialists Must Be Highly Trained
Most major construction projects will likely require the services of a company like Erlinger to deliver cranes to its work site to lift heavy objects and components safely and expertly.
If a contractor in the St. Louis region does not employ its own operators/rigging specialists for the work, Hillesheim's team is the ideal company to call.
Photo courtesy of Russ Erlinger Crane
His crane rigging professionals are adept at sizing up the job at hand and drawing up a plan to perform each lift properly. By analyzing the weight and the dimensions of the load, along with its center of gravity, and how high and how far the load needs to be moved, the rigging pros at Erlinger often make the job look routine.
"All of our people are operators by trade and most of them carry a certificate for signaling and rigging," he said. "We only have two guys that are lift director-certified and that is becoming more common nowadays.
"Every job has a different scope of work," he added. "We try to supply 100 percent of the rigging at each job. We have anything from half-inch steel chokers up to nylon slings rigged rated for 100,000 pounds, and anything from a 4-foot spreader bar to 24-foot spreader bars capable of lifting 100,000 pounds. If we don't have all the rigging we need, we'll get it."
To operate cranes and handle rigging properly, the Erlinger team — all of whom are members of the IOUE — learned most of their specialized skills at the Local IOUE training centers.
"Any training for new equipment that comes in our facility, though, we will do here on site," according to Hillesheim.
Now, though, Hillesheim said that the biggest problem facing Erlinger is how to keep its workforce vibrant by enticing more young people to get into well-paying trades like crane operation.
When asked if he had begun to mine the area trade and technical schools to attract the next generation of operators and rigging specialists, he said, "We strictly hire out of our Local 520 IUOE halls, and right now there are not a lot of people on the list. But it is on our radar to work with technical schools to get some mechanics in our shop."
Hillesheim Brothers Maintain Firm's Family Atmosphere
As a teenager, Hillesheim and his brother, Holden, both worked in the Erlinger shop during the summers, but the older sibling had initially decided working there was not what he wanted to do long term.
As happens to many young people, though, the career path that Hillesheim took made a few twists and turns before pointing him in the right direction.
Photo courtesy of Russ Erlinger Crane
"I thought I wanted to get into machining, so I attended Southwestern Illinois College in this area," he said. "Later, I got a job as a CNC mill operator at a company in St. Louis, but after six months doing that, I realized it was not for me, so I got into a union laborer's hall, Local 397, and did that for a year. Eventually, I realized I wanted to work for Dad again in the crane world."
Now, even though his father generally spends his time in Florida from November to April, his son noted, Rich Hillesheim remains a critical resource for his sons, with whom he speaks most days.
"In the summer, he stops by the shop periodically, but as far as day-to-day management goes, he is really out of it altogether," Hillesheim said. "He has allowed us free rein to run the company as we see fit. That includes keeping the business moving forward on a path to more success."
Erlinger today has a total of 30 employees, one of whom, Brent McKinnon, was recently hired as a crane rental salesman and, in addition, given social media and marketing roles within the company after a few short weeks. His new duties come after 15 years as a crane operator, and 20 years running heavy equipment in general.
About Russ Erlinger Crane Service
Russ Erlinger Crane Service is located at 1117 Galaxy Dr. in Lebanon, Ill.
Its main phone number is 618/206-1044; the 24/7 emergency number to call is 618/410-0177.
For more information, visit erlingercrane.com. CEG
This story also appears on Crane Equipment Guide.
Eric Olson
A writer and contributing editor for CEG since 2008, Eric Olson has worked in the business for more than 40 years.
Olson grew up in the small town of Lenoir, NC in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he began covering sports for the local newspaper at age 18. He continued to do that for several other dailies in the area while in college at Appalachian State University. Following his graduation, he moved on to gain experience at two other publications before becoming a real estate and special features writer and editor at the Winston-Salem Journal for 10 years. Since 1999 he has worked as a corporate media liaison and freelance writer, in addition to his time at CEG.
He and his wife, Tara, have been married for 33 years and are the parents of two grown and successful daughters. His hobbies include collecting history books, watching his beloved Green Bay Packers and caring for his three dogs and one cat.
Read more from Eric Olson here.
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