Crane Capital of the World?And we DON’T mean the bird

llianceArea Development Foundation

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SEBRING, OHPERMIT NO. 35

Alliance Area Development FoundationP.O. Box 3421Alliance, Ohio 44601

Did you know? Alliance fun facts:

Then & NowThe Alliance Ice & Coal Co. &

Whitacre-Greer Fireproofing Company, Inc.

Summer 2010 Vol. 31

Letter from the president:“Alliance has the whole package . . .”

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lliance Area Development Foundation | Summer 2010

Walborn Reservoir Marina, located on Price Street in Alliance, is part of the Stark Parks, Stark County Park District. Since the park district’s creation in 1967, its mission is to, “Acquire, preserve, and develop natural areas for passive recreation, conservation, education, and nature appreciation.” In addition to the Walborn Reservoir, which opened in July 2001, the district also includes Deer Creek Reservoir in Alliance and 9 other sites with more than 6,000 acres and nearly 70 miles of trails, including 3.2 miles of the Mahoning Valley Trail which opened Aug. 28 with a ribbon cutting at Deer Creek Reservoir and bicycle Poker Runs for walkers and bicycle riders. Walborn Marina has free boat ramps, docks, walking, biking and horse riding trails, a pavilion with picnic tables and food sales, an accessible fishing pier, bait sales and restrooms. In addition to these other amenities, families or individuals can also have a fun-filled day kayaking, canoeing or renting a motor boat. The picnic pavilion, as well as pontoon boats, are available for rental by calling 330-409-8096. Event information is available at www.StarkParks.com. You may reach the marina directly by calling 330-935-0367. Stark Parks is just one more reason why Alliance, Ohio has the whole package and is a great place to live and do business.

lliance Area Development Foundation | Summer 2010

Our Mission . . . is to positively impact the retention and expansion of businesses and manu-facturing in the Greater Alliance Area, as well as attracting new com-panies by working with them, area governments and economic develop-ment organizations.

Contact Us . . . visit our website at www.allianceadf.com for development information, email us at aadf@allianceadf.com or call us at 330-823-0700.

* Jennifer Barrett - Just Jen Designs, Newsletter Editor/Layout Design

AADF StaffTom Pukys, President

Pam Richardson, Economic Develop-ment Coordinator

OfficersG. Charles Dix II, Chair

Dr. Richard Giese, Vice ChairMark Fedor, SecretaryJoe Gerzina, Treasurer

At-Large MembersRay Martinez

Scott RobertsonDoug Schwarz

Calendar• Executive Committee meets on the third Thursday of each month at 7:30 a.m.

2010 Board MembersTom AultPeter Basil*Darren BoyleJohn ChristianHarriet ClemGreg ColanerMichael A. ConnyMort DeHoffG. Charles Dix IIMayor Patricia Fallot**Mark FedorMike FurcolowJoe GerzinaDr. Richard GieseSue Goris*Robin GraberMike JeffriesStan JonasCraig Laughlin

Ralph LoberMark Locke**Vince MarionRay Martinez

Gerard MastroianniMayor Toni Middleton**

Mike PauliTodd Pugh

David Redd*Cheri Rice

Jeff RichScott Robertson

Joe SchatzDoug Schwarz

Bill ShiversWill Tolerton

*Community member**Ex-Officio Non-Voting

member

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Thomas Pukys, President

On the cover

From the president . . .

SAVE THE DATE! • The annual dinner is Tuesday, September 21 at 5:00 p.m. at Robertson’s Heating Supply Company.

We should be very proud as we look around our community. The Alliance Area truly has the “whole package”. We have a community with great balance that includes parks and recreation, retail, affordable living, industry, business and a good transportation system. It is plain to see our community continually strives to better itself. Investment happens when there is confidence in a community. There has been a great deal of development activity in the Alliance Area recently. I am proud to say that good things are happening all around us. For example, area school systems are posting “excel-lent” ratings, businesses are hiring and new construction is occurring. Please join us at our annual meeting on September 21st at Robertson Heating Supply Company. We plan to celebrate the area’s continued growth and success.

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Alliance, Ohio: Crane Capital of the World

the first Electric Overhead Traveling Crane in the world in 1881 (pictured above in a photo provided by the Alliance Memories & Rodman Public Library collection and in a sketch taken from the Morgan website). Today, Alliance native and Morgan Engineering president, Mark Fedor, con-tinues the tradition of excellence. “Our founder was a true visionary with quality first and foremost in his mind. This same concept still holds true today - 142 years later - as expressed in the vision statement on the opening pages of our employee handbook: ‘Success is not driven by state-of-the-art tech-nology alone. But, more importantly, it is linked to managing the technology . . . The right people in the right place will remain our greatest asset. They are the backbone of a quality organization and are truly the force that creates and sustains value for the company, and the customer alike.’ There is one reason Morgan has been around so long, and it’s our people,” Fedor said. When our country was celebrating its bicentennial year, a group of local individ-uals was rejoicing at their company’s birth. Since 1976, SES has grown to one of the leading suppliers of equipment for metal industries and other related businesses. Jim Boughton, CEO, heads the team of approximately 115 employees. SES has two high-quality service facilities located in Alli-ance. Lake Park handles the large capital proj-ects which include custom design work and the

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manufacturing of new equipment and systems. The Beeson Street Manufacturing location handles the majority of the rebuilding process-es and the improvement of existing equipment projects. The company’s “design and build” structure, as well as their talented team of en-gineers, allows them to handle projects rang-ing from small specialty custom equipment to major expansions and investments. According to Brooke R. McCarty, office manager and sales & marketing represen-tative, “SES takes great pride in offering specialty equipment to all types of steel manufacturers. Whether transporting hot molten steel in one of our transfer cars, charging and extracting a slab of steel into a hot furnace, transferring and cooling steel bars or tubes, or moving and rotating a coil of steel and transporting it from one area of the mill to another, SES offers state-of-the-art solutions to all of our customers.” Pictured below is a dual 870-ton ladle turret designed and built by SES which han-dles two 435-ton hot-metal ladles and ro-tates them in and out of position for further processing at a vacuum degassing station.

The Industrial Revolution was on its sec-ond wind by the time the town of Alliance was founded in 1854. It officially adopted this moniker reportedly given to it by a rail-road official from Pittsburgh, Pennsylva-nia. This man, General Robinson, thought the name “Alliance” suited the burgeoning industrial area because two major railroad lines in the United States - the Cleveland and Wellsville Railroad, as well as the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad - intersected here. At that time, locomotive transporta-tion in the U.S. was still in its infancy exist-ing only around a quarter of a century. According to the ages-old idiom, ne-cessity truly was the mother of invention when it came to the needs of this grow-ing town and its catalyst for being. The present-day Morgan Engineering was the first to arrive on the scene and provide a solution to an ever-increasing problem - how to effectively pick up and move train engines and cars, as well as provide the tools and other heavy equipment necessary to work on them. Thomas R. Morgan, an immigrant from Wales, began what was to become Morgan Engineering in 1868 in Pittsburgh. Three years later due to the lack of adequate fa-cilities and room for expansion, Morgan moved his company to Alliance, Ohio un-der the name of Marchand & Morgan. Throughout two-successive, short-lived partnerships, Morgan was quick to leave his mark. One of the company’s earliest major accomplishments was to build the first Over-head Traveling Crane in the U.S. in 1878. This achievement was quickly overshad-owed a mere three years later when it built

Alliance fun facts: Then & Now

lliance Area Development Foundation | Summer 2010 4

It’s a scene no longer witnessed on the streets of our towns across the United States today. Horse drawn ice wagons, which were once a com-mon sight, have been depicted in many classic movies like “Meet Me In

St. Louis” and are preserved in photographs like this one taken from the Alliance Memories and Rodman Public Library collection. As time moved on, ice trucks began to replace the wagons, but as home refrigeration became more common in the 1950s and 1960s, this

slice of Americana disappeared forever. This photo from the 1920s remains, however, and tells a story. It speaks of in-genuity. When Peter Samman opened the Alliance Brewing Company in 1905, he had no way of knowing at the time how national events would affect his local business. When the Prohibition era hit from 1920 to 1933, the Brewing Company, which had been located in the 1300 block of East Summit Street, was forced to evolve in order to survive.

The Alliance Ice & Coal Company segment of the brewery (wagon pictured below) survived and was soon fol-lowed by the addition of the Alliance Beverage Company after 1923. This company had a lucrative Coca-Cola and Whistle Orange Drink franchise. It would purchase the syrup and then bottle the drink for the soda industry. Alliance seems to have a knack for

longevity with examples like these in its history and with a current business thriving in the city today.

The Whitacre Fireproofing Company of Waynesburg, Ohio was formed at the turn of the 20th

century. The company, which spe-cialized in making hollow tile, later

merged with the Greer-Beatty Clay Company of Magnolia,

Ohio in 1916. Today, the Whitacre-Greer Fireproofing Company, Inc. remains a family-owned business that operates out of its plant in Alliance. It produces three types of prod-uct: firebrick for masonry purposes (pictured to the left), pavers and firebrick splits for wood burn-

ing stoves. Last year alone it shipped out 15 million pieces. Janet Kaboth, president and chief executive officer, has been with the company for 25 years and is a fourth-generation legacy dating back to the original company which her great-grandfather, J.J. Whitacre, began. Whit-acre-Greer pavers are all over the United States, including many universities, stadiums and resorts. Two well-known areas you should be sure to check out the next time you visit are at the feet of the Statue of Liberty and on the sidewalks along the stretch of Pennsylvania

Avenue in front of the White House to the Capitol building.

In nearby Canfield, Ohio, another company began as a family-owned business in 1949. Winkle Industries started out in the manufacture and recertification of lifting magnets (pictured to the right) and specialized crane products used by the steel indus-try throughout America’s Midwest and Northeastern states. As time and the industry advanced, Winkle outgrew its home base. In 2004, the president and CEO of the company Joe Schatz, who is an Alliance native, sought to relocate in order to meet the ex-pansion needs of his clients. His hometown was a perfect fit. Therefore, Alliance is now headquarters for the newly-constructed, state-of-the-art 75,000 square foot facility located on West Main Street. Director of sales, Mark Volansky, describes the company as being able to provide prod-ucts and services for equipment “above the hook, below the hook, and on the ground.” “Winkle Industries provides engineered solutions for material handling applications to various manufacturing sectors including steel, railroad and mining, scrap processing, foundries, shipbuilding, and aluminum,” Volansky said. “We are very unique in that we manufacture and repair both magnetic and me-chanical material handling equipment under one roof. In addition, we manufacture, repair and service electrical and mechanical crane products. Although we are not a crane builder, our customer base consists of anyone who has an overhead or mobile crane.” Winkle has recently introduced “LiftTech Industrial Services” to the market which involves their field service division supporting cus-tomers in “installation and commissioning, maintenance inspections and service planning, repairs, and training programs.”