Altec in the Tundra: An Aerial for the Alaskan Arctic
During the month of September, a team of three Altec associates from our St. Joseph campus traveled over 3,000 miles to northern Alaska to deliver, mount and complete a TA50 for ConocoPhillips, an opportunity discovered and presented by Altec account manager Nick Zevenbergen. The team worked tirelessly on the project in Alaska for over two weeks, which was the longest on-site project completed to date by associates at St. Joseph. Ron Steele, associate with Altec Service, agreed, “Altec has done some big jobs up there before but not quite as big as this one.”
In preparation for the Alaska delivery, a team of Altec associates built the TA50 at our St. Joseph facility. A team from Carlile Transportation, a trucking company based out of Alaska and featured on the television series Ice Road Truckers, hauled the TA50 and a crate of loose parts to Kuparuk, Alaska, a journey that took ten days. The Kuparuk oilfield (the nation’s second largest by area) is 40 miles west of the giant Prudhoe Bay field on Alaska’s northern coast.
Once the truck arrived at its destination, Jorge Arambula, Frank Potochnick and Tim Stutzman, the Altec team traveling from St. Joseph, made their journey to Anchorage, Alaska where they attended a mandatory eight-hour safety session required of all people going to work in the oilfields. On September 12th, the team finally arrived in Kuparuk to begin their job.
The Altec team worked to mount the TA50 on a trailer that is certified by ADEC, an environmental consultant, to traverse 300 square miles of tundra without destroying the vegetation. The machine and the Altec boom will enable ConocoPhillips to provide maintenance to more than 3,000 powerline poles that are throughout the tundra area.
To mount the TA50 on the trailer, the team worked in thirty-degree weather for long hours each day. Arambula said, “We made a great team; we worked together every day for twelve, thirteen, fourteen hours. It was a great experience.”
Arambula was not too concerned about the cold, but he explained that the rain and snow made the job much more difficult. Potochnick agreed, saying the project “had a little bit of everything in it.” He elaborated, “It was exciting; it was a challenge; there were times when the place was beautiful; it was cold; it was windy; it was raining; it was snowing.” However, Potochnick welcomed the new experience as he learned about the different work environments in which people must function.
Despite the rough weather, Arambula added that the hardest part of the project was “staying away from my family for two and a half weeks.”
The team in Alaska and associates at St. Joseph kept in good contact with one another throughout the project. Steele stated, “Frank, Jorge and Tim would communicate with me on how things were going, where they were in the process and if there were some parts that they needed. I kept all of the project information with me and made myself available to them 24/7 until the job was completed.”
Arambula agreed, adding, “We had a great support group from manufacturing to management.”
When the job was finally complete two weeks later, associates provided training to ConocoPhillips employees and contractors before returning home on September 26th.
After the harsh Alaska weather, associates were glad to be home again. They each appreciated the once in a lifetime event. Potochnick explained, “The sense of accomplishment and pride that I have is all thanks to Altec. The project wouldn’t have been possible without their support.”