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CRANE AND RIGGING
Accomplishing The Seemingly Impossible
By Relentlessly Pursuing Their Dream
and Putting People First
Written by: Brian Hoover / Photos contributed by: Kerry Hoover and Rudolph & Sletten
B
rent Brewer and Rolynda
Brewer started Brewer Crane &
Rigging together in February 1997.
Before that, both had been working
diligently at their respective jobs,
Rolynda managed a lighting company
and Brent was a salesman for
another large crane enterprise.
By 1996, Brent became frustrated
with the way things were going. He
remembers sitting at the kitchen
table one Friday night, asking
Rolynda (“Ro” for short) what she
would like to do that weekend; Brent
recalls Ro saying, “I hate to burst
your bubble, but after all of our bills
are paid, we have about $20 left
between the two of us.” So what did
they do that weekend? They had a
garage sale of course! And raised
some quick spending money. Brent
remembers saying to Ro, “We’re
never going to really get ahead
working for someone else.” A short
time later, Rolynda put pen to paper
and wrote a professional proposal to
her parents, asking if the couple and
her then-young son, Brent Garcia,
could move into her parent’s home.
The plan allowed Brent and Ro to
pay a modest rent to her parents in
order to help keep costs down while
starting their own crane business.
“We were living in a beautiful
custom home with a six car garage,
but after paying our bills each
month, there was simply nothing left
to do anything with,” says Rolynda.
“My parents are wonderful people
Above: Brewer Crane & Rigging currently has three Liebherr 542-HCL luffing tower cranes
working at the new San Diego County Superior Courthouse for Rudolph & Sletten.
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and were willing to do whatever it
took to help us get our dreams off
the ground. We left all of the
luxuries and non-essentials behind
and focused solely on starting our
company.” And so Brewer Crane
began with Ro typing up quotes and
answering phones from the kitchen
table of her childhood home, and
Brent out drumming up sales and
running cranes.
The duo had a unique mix of
skills and experience – one which
turned out to be a recipe for
success. Brent Brewer got his start
in the crane business working for
over 15 years with his father, Clell
Brewer, who owned Cabrillo Crane
and Cabrillo Hoist in San Diego
before the companies were sold to
Anthony Crane in 1994. “I have great
respect for my father and all that
he accomplished in the crane and
rigging business. He taught me most
of what I know and use in my
everyday business.” Rolynda’s
resume consisted mainly of
construction bookkeeping and office
management for varied companies
and industries – everything from
coffee shop bookstores to retail
to residential construction. Ro
highlights that “after years of
working with Nordstrom and doing
things the ‘Nordstrom way’, I wanted
to bring those same principles of
going above and beyond in terms
of customer service to the crane
industry.” They each leveraged
their respective skills to help get
Brewer Crane off the ground.
But success didn’t come quickly.
Work trickled in at first. Brent and
Ro teamed up with two partners to
increase the company’s chance of
success. Finally, Brewer Crane &
Rigging (Brewer Crane) got one of its
first big breaks when Rudolph and
Sletten called and needed cranes to
help construct the Amgen facility in
Thousand Oaks. Even though the job
was far from the company’s home
base, it required two cranes and
lasted for five months. It was
consistent revenue and it helped
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build Brewer Crane’s resume in
those early days. The company even
got a dose of celebrity in that first
year. Brent remembers, “I received
a call from a contractor needing a
crane for use on the Spielberg film,
Amistad,” says Brent. “We thought
outside the box and partnered with
a friend of mine from Arizona who
provided us with a 30-ton
crane for the movie project.”
The crane was loaded onto a
barge and the seafaring movie
took sail. This project lasted for
two months with Brent running
the crane 18 hours a day, seven
days a week. With these first
two jobs under the company’s
“belt,” Brent and Rolynda were
able to break away from their
additional partners and settle
into the company – just the
two of them. “We bought our
first crane, which was a used
1976 75-ton P&H from Colton
Equipment out of La Mirada,
California,” remembers Brent.
“We began using the P&H to
work up in the mountains on
communication sites. This
kept us busy, along with the
occasional tree, HVAC, and
other typical lifting jobs,” says
Brent. “We took anything we
could get our hands on and were
eventually able to purchase a gently
used 1997 Grove TTS870 hydraulic
truck crane and then another one
a few months later. It was in 1999
when we finally purchased our first
brand new crane, a Terex T340
hydraulic truck crane. That was a
big day for us.”
Above & Inset: Brewer Crane & Rigging’s new
Link-Belt 238 HSL 150-ton lattice crawler
crane on the mall expansion in La Jolla.
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While happy to be on their own
and partner-free now, Brent and Ro
recognize the value that their early
partners brought to the company.
One of those specifically earning
their thanks is Tom Colton of Colton
Crane. “Tom was a friend of my
father’s and owned and operated
Colton Equipment - among other
companies - for many years,” Brent
recounts. “Tom made it possible for
us to purchase our first cranes, was
a partner in our business for a few
years and taught us a lot about this
crazy crane industry. We want to
thank him for being like a father to us
and want him to know that we very
much appreciate all that he did for
our company and family.” Working
closely with banks and vendors
can make the difference between
success and failure for many in the
crane and rigging business and Tom
helped Brewer Crane do just that in
the early days of the company.
By 1999, Brewer Crane & Rigging
was getting noticed and the phones
were ringing off the hook, so much
so that the company’s headquarters
progressed from Ro’s parents’
kitchen table to a construction
trailer in their front yard, to some
actual office space leased from A.M.
Ortega Construction in Lakeside,
California. With strong winds at its
back, the company began to hunt for
talented crane operators and other
employees. This was easier said than
done. “We struggled to find operators
and resorted to putting want ads in
newspapers,” says Brent.
Rolynda and Brent reflect fondly
on finding their first full-time
employee, Chris Campbell. Ro
remembers being out on one of
their weekend jobs in San Diego,
where a new part-time operator
was operating a crane for a
communications customer: “When
I met Chris and watched him for the
very first time operating a rented
30-ton crane for us, I knew we had
to hire him full-time.” She recounts,
“Brent and I met with him a week
later at a restaurant and we laid it
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all-out for Chris. We let him know
that we did not own any cranes
– at that time – and that we were
working out of my parent’s home.
We also let him know that we
had just landed a long-term job
in Thousand Oaks and we shared
our dreams and visions. Then we
asked him to take a leap of faith
and come work for us full-time.”
After going home and discussing
the quixotic proposition with his
wife and family, Chris took the leap
and accepted Brent and Rolynda’s
offer. Brent and Rolynda agree:
“Chris has been with us for 19 years
and now serves as our operations
manager, overseeing sales and
estimating. But more importantly,
he and his wife, April, have become
family to us, being there in good
times and bad. For that, we will be
forever grateful.”
In keeping with the theme of a
company with family roots, Brent
Garcia, Rolynda’s son, also joined the
ranks as a “family-slash-employee”
working in one way or another for
Brewer Crane since the age of
14. He continued working for the
company throughout high school
and university and today, with a
decade’s more experience and a
degree in finance, he serves as the
company’s CFO and risk manager
and he will also hold the company’s
class A contractors license. “I
am very proud of my son and all
that he has accomplished in such
a relatively short amount of time.
He has worked hard to acquire his
education, his licenses, and the
respect of his peers. He goes above
and beyond the call to look out for
this corporation,” says Rolynda.
“He is a big part of our success and
we truly appreciate what he has
done for this company.”
At the beginning of a new
century, in 2000, Brewer Crane had
added several more cranes to its
fleet, including a 1992 Demag
180-ton crane and two 40-ton Terex
cranes. They also discovered the
world of tower cranes, adding two
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Above: New Link-Belt RTC 8090 90-ton
crane on the mall expansion in La Jolla.
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Above: Another view of the three Liebherr 542-HCL luffing tower cranes working
at the new San Diego County Superior Courthouse for Rudolph & Sletten.
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Potain HGT80 fast-erect tower
cranes as well. “We found that
demand was really high for these
tower cranes, which led to the
company needing even larger
hydraulic cranes to help erect
the tower cranes. Business was
booming,” says Brent. “We started
leasing our full-sized tower cranes
with operators, and companies also
began hiring us to run their tower
cranes.” The company started
developing a new team to address
the needs of tower cranes and
construction hoists, a team which
today calls itself “The Riggers.”
Rolynda offers “our rigging crew
today is one of the best you can find
anywhere in the world.”
In 2007, Brewer Crane was still
growing exponentially, but things
were about to change. “We could all
see the handwriting on the wall, but
no one wanted to believe it,” says
Brent. “So 2008 hit us right in the
back of the head, just like everybody
else. The phone just stopped ringing
and work slowed to a trickle.”
Brewer Crane now had 15 truck- and
rough-terrain cranes that they
needed to keep busy and dozens of
employees who needed to eat and
pay mortgages. “There was very
little work in San Diego, so we went
to Tehachapi and opened a yard
there in order to do maintenance for
a few major wind energy companies.
I went up and did sales calls and
we even rented a house for our
operators to live in,” says Brent.
“We took our 400-ton, 275-ton,
170-ton and some smaller cranes
and kept them busy for a while.” In
2011 green shoots started to show
themselves when Brewer Crane was
awarded a contract installing bridge
structures for Union Pacific Railroad
in Imperial County. This lasted until
the end of 2012 and helped stabilize
things until business found a new
normal in 2014. Brent recounts,
“between this work and other
spotty work throughout Southern
California, we were able to weather
the Great Recession without having
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to layoff one employee or sell one
single crane. All things considered,
I think we did OK.”
But while Brewer Crane &
Rigging managed to weather one
of the worst economic storms in a
generation, the marriage between
Brent and Rolynda wasn’t as lucky,
ending in 2012. Despite such an
unfortunate setback, they didn’t
allow this personal fissure to end
what they both had worked so hard
for over so many years. “I don’t
believe that anyone today could
start a crane company the way we
did 19 years ago,” says Rolynda.
“We started with literally nothing,
but always believed in what we
were doing. Now Brent and I run
this business as co-owners from
different fronts, and we have our
own special roles that we each
do very well. My faith in God has
given me great strength and we are
altogether truly blessed. I am proud
of what we have accomplished
together and look forward to many
more years of success.”
By most accounts that success
did indeed continue following
company’s 2014 recovery. Brent
explains, “We began adding more
operators, purchasing additional
cranes, and performing more tower
crane and construction hoist work in
2014. We got some huge contracts,
like the Superior Court House job in
downtown San Diego that required
three large, luffing tower cranes,”
says Brent. “We also continued
to take on defense contracts with
major corporations, along with
supporting naval operations as
a subcontractor.” That year the
company also started to strategically
plan for the growth it was seeing
over the horizon. The executive team
hired Pam Scholefield, of Scholefield
P.C. – Construction Law to serve
as the company’s general counsel
and together they evaluated the
company from the top, down. Every
company process was evaluated
and, if needed, changed. From the
company’s accounting program to
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Above: Liebherr tower cranes were
working at a 500 foot elevation
hoisting structural steel, precast
concrete panels and various other
lifts on the project.
its process for generating customer
quotes, no stone was left unturned.
The overhaul, which became known
as “the roll out” internally, sparked
some big changes within the
company and also led to several
new key players being added to the
Brewer Crane team. Rolynda eagerly
offers, “Our team is simply the
best these days – I thank my lucky
stars we have so many outstanding
individuals working with us.”
Today, Brewer Crane & Rigging
has over 70 employees, a fleet of
over 30 mobile cranes and semi
tractors, dozens of tower cranes
and construction hoists in the air,
and they’ve upgraded their facility
to a spacious five-acre yard and
office building replete with four
fully-equipped maintenance bays.
The company has also fostered
important strategic relationships
with industry allies like Nixon-Egli
Equipment Company and Morrow
Equipment Company. Brent
explains, “I call up in need of special
equipment and they just meet our
needs when and where we need it.
I have been back to the Link-Belt
factory a few times and I am just so
very impressed with their product
line.” He continues, “Steve Nixon is
my type of guy. He is an honest man
and a straight shooter with old-time
values. Our sales rep Tom Trevithick
is also great to work with, as is their
service manager, Dave Heitmiller.
They always answer their phones,
and are very helpful.”
Brewer Crane has a long list of
current projects with customers
including their very first customer,
Rudolph, and Sletten. “They were
our first customer and we continue
to work for them. Right now we are
on a courthouse project, a shopping
mall expansion project, a college
campus project, and we just
completed a job at the UCSD
Medical Campus for them,” says
Brent. “We work for so many great
contractors on jobs like the San
Diego Airport Rental Car Center
and a student housing project for
Sundt Construction. We currently
have cranes and crews spread out
from San Diego to Los Angeles,
Long Beach, Hollywood, Glendale
and all the way out to Palm Springs.
I am very thankful for our clients,
vendors, and employees and look
forward to a very bright future.”
Brewer Crane & Rigging offers
mobile cranes with capacities
ranging from boom trucks to 400
tons. It has a full fleet of semi trucks
within its trucking division and it
can accommodate bonded storage.
Brewer Crane also offers a full tower
division with the ability to provide,
erect, service, and dismantle tower
cranes and construction hoists. For
more information about Brewer
Crane & Rigging, please visit
www.brewercrane.com or call
(619) 390-8252. Cc
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