INTERVIEW
20
ACT
AUGUST 2013
type of gantry crane.”
A major turning point came when
the company developed the first
commercially available boom gantry, the
LIFT-N-LOCK Hydraulic Boom Gantry,
in 1988.
“We decided to leave consulting behind
to focus on designing and manufacturing
our own line of premier lifting equipment,”
Johnston explains.
Since that time the company and its
LIFT-N-LOCK brand have prospered.
These gantries have been used on some
of the most complicated lifting jobs
ever accomplished, many of which are
annually entered in the SC&RA Job of the
Year contest.
Johnston talked to us about his company
and the products it produces.
HOW DID YOU GET INTO THIS BUSINESS? WHAT
HAVE BEEN YOUR ROLES WITH THE COMPANY?
I’ve always wanted to build things,
to design things. Some of my earliest
memories are of my dad and his
involvement in the crane business.
My first job in the company was
assembling hydraulic boom tow trucks,
which we designed and manufactured.
I then began working with engineering
drafting and detail drawings in high
school. While in college, I continued
mechanical drafting, and in the summers,
was involved in the manufacturing and
field services portions of my father’s
company.
After I graduated college, I went to work
for Dawes Rigging & Crane and focused
on lift project management and gantry
rental coordination. The following year,
my dad and I got together and formed
J&R Engineering with the concept of the
new LIFT-N-LOCK boom gantry.
My specific roles within the
company have ranged from shop floor
management, sales and field service,
engineering, to purchasing and human
Kevin Johnston, president of J&R Engineering tells the
story of the company he started with his father and the
success of their LIFT-N-LOCK technology.
Locked in
S
ome of the most impressive
projects in the realm of
crane, rigging and specialized
transportation involve the use of hydraulic
gantries. Hydraulic gantries have become
an integral part of the specialized lifting
spectrum, and a leader in this type of
equipment is J&R Engineering.
Kevin Johnston, president of the
company, tells an impressive story of the
evolution of the company.
“In the late 1970s and early 1980s,
J&R Engineering did a fair amount of
consulting work for the new product
engineering departments of American
Hoist and Unit Crane & Shovel, which at
the time, were two crane manufacturing
companies,” he says. “My father, Roger
Johnston, was a co-founder and primary
engineer for Riggers Manufacturing,
which manufactured the earliest basic
hydraulic gantries. This inspired him to
make a more advanced version of his own
Earlier this year,
J&R delivered the
prototype of a
210-ton capacity
spent fuel crawler
transporter to a
nuclear power plant.
