Tim Selinsky squinted through the veil of snow accumulating on the windshield of his truck, which he had parked a few feet from the old Sandusky Bay Bridge. As he shivered, he thought about the size of the structure and searched for a solution to a dilemma.
He had signed a contract with the state of Ohio to dislodge the bridge and move it in pieces without interrupting service of the three railroad lines running beneath it. But the state had grossly miscalculated the weight of the 164-foot-long bridge and Selinsky’s 125-ton cranes wouldn’t do the job.
He considered bringing in brawnier cranes, but not only would that significantly alter the contract price, it wouldn’t meet the requirement for mobile cranes that could get out of the way of the trains.
Resolute, he began sketching out an amazing alternative. He would build corner cribs at the ends of the bridge to elevate four hydraulic jacks just high enough to let the trains run underneath. The jacks would boost the entire bridge-all in one piece-eight feet into the air. A 400-ton slider system would be positioned beneath, allowing the massive structure to be gently rolled onto the road, where it would be loaded on a specialized truck and hauled away as planned.
The task was elaborate and laborious. Working against bitter winter weather and endless delays caused by speeding trains, Selinsky’s machines and work crews removed the historic Sandusky Bay Bridge in one month. That was five years ago, but people still talk about it.
Closer to home, they still talk about the way two cranes owned by Henry A. Selinsky Inc. hoisted the old St. Helena II tourist boat from its murky pit in Canal Fulton to deliver it safely to dry land.
And the way the night sky at Belden Village was lit up like a football field when Sears Roebuck & Co. hired Selinsky to set steel for its second story, using cranes that could lift 175 tons at a time.
Since the early ’30s, the Selinsky name has been known throughout Stark County for an amazing specialty known as rigging-the setting of scaffolds and other really heavy and cumbersome stuff.
As local folklore has it, the company is a household name when it comes to wives nagging their spouses: “If you don’t get off that couch, I’m going to call the Selinsky brothers!”
But it’s no joke that when such manufacturers as The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Republic Engineered Steels, The Hoover Co. and Diebold Inc. need anything from a 10,000-pound forging press to a 400-ton transformer moved from Point A to Point B, they call the Selinsky brothers, who do business at 4015 23rd St. S.W. in Canton Township.
“There are more 10,000-pound pieces of machinery to move than 100-ton pieces, and even though we do those small things very efficiently-that’s our bread and butter work-you can make a lot more money with the larger pieces. And since there’s absolutely nothing we can’t move, people know we’re the only company to call,” says John Selinsky, who operates the company with his brothers Ned, Tim and Jeff.
The siblings have brought the family business a long way from its humble beginnings as a two-man operation that set steel using a coal truck. They still set steel, but Selinsky equipment may also be called on to upright a flipped semi on the highway or remove a crashed plane from a runway-as it was a generation ago for the plane crash that killed New York Yankee catcher Thurmon Munson.
It’s not the kind of business you break into overnight. The current crop of owners represents the third generation of family control of this ultimate niche business and they funnel enormous sums of money into it-such as for the recent purchase of a 175-ton crane for more than $1.2 million.
“Our capital expenditures each year are phenomenal, but that’s part of what has made us successful,” John Selinsky says. “When we took it over, it was just one company that mainly did machinery moving, rigging and crane rental. We expanded into plant maintenance, expanded the crane service, adding a lot more cranes … and bigger trucks.”
The first generation had a half-dozen cranes. The company now owns more than 250 pieces of equipment.
Since they took over operations in 1978, the four brothers have added three companies to the Selinsky enterprise. In 1982, they formed Selinsky Brothers Inc. to lease aerial platforms-which are fast replacing ladders in modern plants.
“It’s a business that, if you’re going to get into it, you have to be willing to put a lot capital into it, because you have to service them, too,” Selinsky notes. “But all our industrial customers and the subcontractors we worked with-electrical contractors, piping, plumbing, heating and air conditioning people-they all needed this service, so we didn’t have to find other clients. We used the same client base and gave them another service.”
The second company was Meredith Erectors & Crane Rental Inc., acquired in 1989 to expand into steel erection-a side of the business that waned during the second generation’s administration.
Then, in a 1995 joint venture with Lattavo Bros. Inc., they created Continental Freight Lines, a heavy specialized trucking company for “superloads”-gargantuan rigs up to 190 feet long that, with special permits and police escorts, can haul historic old bridges and other ungainly payloads of up to 250,000 pounds.
The expansion was not a result of formal research-just “experience research,” as Selinsky calls it. “We’ve always looked for opportunities and we just noticed what problems our customers were having,” he says.
The talent for lifting heavy things began during the Depression, when 15-year-old Alva “Bub” Selinsky and his father Henry, a millwright at Timken, tore the truck bed off of young Bub’s truck and replaced it with a boom to set steel at construction sites. Over time, Henry’s moonlighting began conflicting with his job at Timken and he handled it by calling in sick.
“They knew he was up to something but they couldn’t quite figure it out,” says John Selinsky, Bub’s third-born son. “One day, when he didn’t show up for work, Timken sent someone to the house to check on him. Grandmother was a religious woman who never lied and she told them where he was. They went down to Cherry Street where he was setting steel and fired him.”
The year was 1932, and the<$k20> <$k$>part-time job became a full-time occupation, working from a location on Navarre Road in Canton. Eventually, Henry’s second and third sons, Warren and Neil, joined the business too.
“As in most family businesses, it tends to be that things go well when the business is small and there’s no money, nothing to fight over. You’re just out there striving for survival,” John Selinsky says. “Then when things become successful, you’ve got something to fight over. They went through so many family business problems, they wrote the book on how not to get along.”
Selinsky sidesteps queries about the kinship clashes that ultimately severed the sibling ties and business bonds between his father and uncles following his grandfather Henry’s death in 1956 or so.
But Henry’s will was clear: Bub was left with voting control of the company-partly because he was the firstborn, but also because of the feuding, Selinsky says.
“There were just so many different personalities and egos,” Selinsky offers flatly. Then, as if to assuage deductions derived from unanswered questions, he adds, “Still, they were always very successful because they knew what they were doing and they were excellent at doing it.”
As Bub’s four boys-Ned, Tim, John and Jeff-grew older, he put them to work weekends and summers, doing everything from sweeping floors to driving trucks.
“A lot people say, ‘Gee, they’re really lucky, their dad gave them that business.’ But he didn’t,” John Selinsky says. “We bought it from our uncles and our dad. I was 26 years old, out looking for a million dollars. We each put our houses up as collateral, signed on the dotted lines and got loans to do this.”
By that time, Bub’s brother Warren had edged out of the company, starting a steel processing bu
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ness in 1976-Ohio Steel Slitters Inc. He still runs the company on Raff Road with his sons, Craig and Darryl.
Neil Selinsky, too, had parted ways with brother Bub, launching Canton Erectors Inc. on Quimby Avenue in 1964.
That company is a competitor still today, operated by Neil’s sons, Brian and Mike, specializing in heavy machinery moving, rigging and crane service.
“There seems to be enough work to go around,” says Canton Erectors vice-president, Brian Selinsky. Asked how the mood goes at family gatherings, Brian concedes, “They’re still our competition, so there’s not a lot of family activities.”
Sadly, it’s not uncommon that a family business can hurt family relationships. But when Bub’s four sons bought Henry A. Selinsky Inc., they adopted certain covenants to make sure it wouldn’t happen to this family again.
“First, we decided that problems would stay among the four of us-we wouldn’t take them home,” Selinsky says. “We’ve done that to the best of our abilities.”
They also put an end to the hierarchy of the first born.
“We each do what we’re best at, what we like to do, so there are no jealousies about what the other guy does. But we all cross over and help each other when we need to.”
John holds the title of president; Tim is vice president and estimator; Ned is corporate treasurer and estimator; Jeff serves as corporate secretary and sales director. All four draw the same salary and own equal shares in not only Henry A. Selinsky Inc., but in the three other companies they’ve since built or acquired. If any one of them decides to leave, there is a buy-sell agreement that dictates how the transaction will occur.
Under their united leadership, the company today employs an average of 100 people and 1998 revenues topped the $15 million mark. Operations are focused in a 60-mile radius around Canton, though equipment has traveled much farther in service to large clients.
Selinsky says he and his brothers hope their own children will take the company into its fourth generation. But it’s still early for that; so far, Tim’s son, Brett, is a dispatcher at the company, and Jeff’s son, Scot, works as a crane operator.
“They say it’s usually the third generation that’s going to screw it up, but I don’t know about that,” Selinsky laughs.