Featured in Lift Line Summer 2025
A person donning a mechanized steel suit to increase their strength is common in science fiction. Think of Tony Stark as Iron Man in innumerable Marvel blockbusters or the P-5000 Power Loader from the Alien movies.
Turns out, it’s not so far-fetched. The same concept has been going on in plain sight for decades. After all, what is a crane but a supercharged exo-suit that allows humans to easily move enormous weight?
Just who are the people who take on such awesome responsibility? They are crane operators. People who every day climb aboard powerful metal machines to fearlessly, and with planning and precision, move figurative mountains.
Obviously, planning heavy lifts is a team effort. Sales reps work with customers to gather project parameters and recommend an appropriate piece of equipment. Working solo or with in-house engineers, they develop pre-lift plans. The parts and service crews make sure each crane is running in tip-top shape. Dispatch, logistics, and trucking get the crane where it needs to go, on time and on schedule.
But when it’s time to execute the lift, the individual who’s pulling the levers puts on the supercharged exo-suit and, along with signalers and a ground team, performs some pretty heroic feats. To find out more about the job and the people behind it, we spoke with three operators from the ALL Family.
Matt Adamski
Dawes Rigging & Crane Rental
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Matt Adamski remembers the first time he became enamored with cranes. His dad, a draftsman, was doing some work for Drott Manufacturing Company. He came home with a picture of himself standing next to a travel lift (a gantry crane modified with legs and wheels). “At that time, it was the largest travel lift in the world, and the tires were taller than my dad,” said Adamski. “I was in awe.”
Adamski was immediately hooked. By chance, one of his first jobs as a teenager gave him his first taste of actually operating a crane. “I worked at a rock quarry. It had a lot of cranes, including a nearly indestructible crawler that had been built back in 1957. We young guys were allowed to practice on it. The quarry owner figured there wasn’t much we could hurt,” said Adamski.
A young Adamski used that 22-ton crawler to move around 15-ton rocks and 10-foot hunks of granite.
For the past 15 years, Adamski has mostly specialized in operating the Liebherr LTM 1450 series of all-terrain cranes. These powerhouses have a capacity of 550 tons, literally 25 times more powerful than the old crawler he started out on as a teen.
“The work never gets monotonous. I’m always doing something different and learning something different.” Liebherr is known for its always evolving, cutting-edge technology, so there’s plenty of ongoing learning for Adamski to enjoy.
He’s been with Dawes for 26 years and operated cranes for other entities a decade before that. “I remember being at a truck stop and seeing a Dawes 85-ton AT pull in. It was beautiful. I told myself one day I’d operate that crane,” said Adamski. “Within two years I was working at Dawes and operating that same model.” At the time, the largest AT in the fleet topped out at 250 tons. “A lot has changed since then.”
One of the most memorable lifts of Adamski’s career was a dual pick with him piloting one of two Liebherr LTM 1450s. “We were helping a maker of overhead cranes build a port crane intended to help unload cargo ships. It was so massive that the carbody the crane swings around on weighed 383,000 pounds. Our job was to lift that carbody and stack it on wheels that ran on a track.”
The two operators had to work in tandem to lift almost 400,000 pounds. “It couldn’t have gone any better. We worked in perfect unison. The other operator and I were in radio contact and we had spotters as well, but it all comes down to planning. It helps all of us stay cool behind the controls. We’re almost operating by feel at that point."
Larry "Cajun" Phillips
ALL Sunshine Crane Rental
Orlando, Florida
Larry Phillips has been working in Florida for more than three decades, but his Louisiana roots earned him the nickname “Cajun” and that is what most people call him to this day. He’s been operating cranes for a decade and a half a er spending the first part of his career as a truck driver for ALL.
“Operating a crane is more mental than physical,” said Phillips. “You’ve always got to be on your ‘A’ game because the margin of error is small.”
Phillips’s main machine is the Liebherr LTM 10904.2, a 110-ton AT. His day begins with a pre-lift meeting. Then, much like an airplane pilot’s pre ight inspection, he performs a 360-degree inspection of his crane.
“I’ve been here a long time and everyone works well together,” said Phillips. “ALL is a great place to work because you get out of the job what you put into it. Someone is always willing to teach you if you’re willing to learn.”
Because of his 33 years with ALL, Phillips is a familiar face to many customers. Some of them have his phone number and call him directly to start the job initiation process. “I’ll call our manager and get the job set up. We go the extra mile for customers because they’re why we’re here.”
With his branch located in Orlando, he does a lot of nighttime work for the city’s robust amusement park market. Because that industry is extremely secretive, he can’t talk about much of his work.
A memorable project he can discuss involves setting fabricated branches for cell phone towers made to look like large pine trees, an effort the densely populated state of Florida has undertaken to help towers blend into their surroundings.
“You have to place each branch one at a time,” said Phillips. “With some jobs, it’s the weight that’s impressive. Here, it’s about the repetition. I have to set 326 branches for each tower, each specially rigged at a 50-degree angle so they’ll more easily fit into the slot.
Phillips reflects that he’s worked at ALL for more than half his life. “It’s gone by so fast. This is a great company with great people, where they value you as a person and give you all the tools you need to succeed.”
Tyler Hittle
ALL Crane Rental Corp.
Columbus, Ohio
Tyler Hittle was destined to be a builder. He was raised in the construction business, with his dad owning a commercial roofing company. He played with trucks and toy construction equipment. “I was always the kid who loved playing in the sandbox,” said Hittle. “The toys are bigger now, but I’m still living my childhood dream.”
After the birth of his own first child 13 years ago, Hittle turned to a career as a crane operator and joined the union. “I worked out of the hall until I found a home with ALL six years ago.”
In his career, Hittle has progressed from running boom trucks to his current assignment, operating the Liebherr LTM 1650-8.1, a 770-ton AT. “Once the AT is built, it’s similar to running any other crane.”
“Your responsibility isn’t just to get the crane to the jobsite and perform the lift. There are eight to 12 truckloads that go with it, depending on configuration. The operator becomes the quarterback of getting the crane assembled,” said Hittle.
The tech sector is booming in Columbus and Hittle works on a lot of data centers, often setting dozens of large generators over the course of a few days. He’s worked in oil and gas, helped build substations for electrical utilities companies, set miscellaneous equipment at petrochemical refineries, and performed lifts during scheduled maintenance shutdowns at plants.
Hittle enjoys the collaborative nature of the job, talking over a project with a sales rep, working with dispatch on scheduling, offering his input during the planning of complex lifts.
His most memorable job was a study in collaboration. “I worked a job last year with a 530-foot tip height. The crane was configured with 208 feet of main boom and 299 feet of luffing jib. The job was to add a rooftop swimming pool to an existing building in downtown Columbus that was being converted into housing. Because it was located so close to the Ohio Statehouse, it was a no-fly zone, so they couldn’t helicopter it in, which is common for this type of work.”
Instead, the team had set up the Liebherr LTM 1650 on a side street. “We were really limited on space, plus there were underground vaults, so ground bearing pressure was critical. We brought in Josh Bacci and Chad Rados from HQ to help out with planning. Our sales rep, Chris Kirk, was heavily involved. Liebherr’s on-board computer, LICCON, was a huge asset because it allowed us to run simulations right in the cab.”
Maneuvers began on Thanksgiving weekend. “We assembled the crane from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. the next morning and started picking the structural support stainless steel for the pool. Because of the weight at that radius, we had to use Y-guying to take deflection out of the boom and also start scoping out with the tip of the luffing jib still on the ground. I called up John Belu, a veteran operator at our Cleveland branch, to get his ideas on the best approach. I also read a lot of manuals. It was a total team effort.”
Hittle wraps up by mentioning something about his job that surely resonates with Adamski, Phillips, and anyone who operates heavy machinery. “At the end of each day, you’ve accomplished something you can point to and say, ‘I did that.’ All the time when I’m driving around with my wife and kids, I’ll see a building on the horizon and start reminiscing about the work I did there. I know they probably think dad is being corny, but it’s a constant reminder of a job well done.”