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Here’s what we
do:
Service Provided: Crane Service; Millwrighting;
Specialized Steel Erection;
Heavy, Oversize and otherwise
Complex Transportation;
Complete Machinery Moving
Services; Crane Capacity to 500
Ton; Forklift Capacities from
1 to 65 Ton; Roll Back &
Winch Trucks; Plant Move
Engineering & Planning; 500
Ton Hydraulic Gantry; and
Complete Machinery Warehousing,
on site.
Plus, we have space within our
warehouses to store items you
may need in the future but not
right now or simply want to put
in lay away.
Specialty:
Heavy Rigging; Machinery Moving: Railroad
Bridge Repair and
Replacement; Transport and Installation
of Plastic
Injection Molding & Punch Presses; Complete
Turnkey Machine or
Plant Moves including Removal,
Transport and
Reinstallation; Transport of Large Diameter,
Length & Weight Tanks & Vessels;
plus Complete Turnkey
Rail Movements.
We accomplish this
business nationwide.
Want us to do something
else? Just e-mail or call. If we
can do it, you may have just
found your business partner for
the present and the future…
ENTERPRISE
From the August 26, 2005 print edition
Hatbox to hard hat
Hensley Industries president tailors machine hauler
Karen
Bells
Senior Editor
Sometimes it's hard to tell at first if something will be a
good fit. An item that seems not to suit you can turn out to be just right.
When she used to own two local dress shops, Linda Hensley saw
that phenomenon with customers. Now she's experiencing it herself as
president of Hensley
Industries. It wasn't the job she wanted, nor
one she thought fit, but she's grown to love it. After making alterations,
both the business and Hensley are thriving.
It certainly hasn't been an easy trip, but along the way
Hensley has learned a lot about herself, become closer to her grown
stepsons and moved confidently from the all-female world of dress shops to
the male-dominated business of rigging, machinery moving and heavy
equipment removal and installation.
"I believe you play the cards that you're dealt,"
she said.
In her case, that involved taking over Hensley Industries
after her beloved husband, Earl, died. She and her sister Judy Thelan had sold their Miss Martha's stores, and she was
just starting to enjoy an early retirement. Earl Hensley, meanwhile, was
running the business that he and his wife had invested in and incorporated
in 1994, and enjoying life with the woman he married in 1993.
Earl's father had started Hensley Industries decades earlier,
and he had worked in the family business for years. But eventually they had
sold it. Reopening the company with Linda was a dream
come true, especially with sons Chris
Altman Hensley and Jim Hensley working in the business as
journeyman ironworkers.
But in late 2001 everything changed. Earl was diagnosed with a
rare type of liver cancer. Despite aggressive treatment, he died three
months to the day later. He was 55; Linda was 54.
While Linda, Jim and Chris tried to grapple with their grief,
they also wondered what would become of Hensley Industries. The business
was not profitable in 2001, and revenues that year had slipped to $3.7
million from $4.9 million in 2000. Along with the economic hard times
experienced by many businesses in 2001, Hensley Industries had lost some
clients and direction during the months of Earl's illness and directly
following his death.
"All I could think of was how hard he had worked to build
the business and how much he loved it," Linda Hensley said. "I
said, 'Well, I've gotta get in there.'"
Ten days after Earl's death, Linda was out of retirement and
sitting in his office ready to do what it took to get the business back on
track. She started by bringing her stepsons, who worked hands-on out in the
field, into executive roles to help run the firm their grandfather had
started. Chris serves as vice president, while Jim is director of
operations.
"She could've easily just shut the doors," said
Chris. "She's not a token leader. She's here every day."
Working together has brought the brothers and their stepmother
close, said Jim. Together, they pushed up their sleeves and got cracking.
It wasn't easy, and Chris calls that first year after his dad's death
"the pork 'n' beans days."
"The first year was murder. We were losing money and
doing things we weren't set up to do," he said.
Those included two ancillary businesses under the Hensley
Industries umbrella that were taking time and money away from the main
rigging and equipment-moving work. So they sold off the mechanical/HVAC
division and a cigarette distribution business.
They've instituted plenty of other changes in the past three
years, Linda said. Major management changes as well as other staff changes
ensured that everyone at Hensley was the right fit; all told, they replaced
about 10 on the 40-person staff. They worked to establish an open
atmosphere and emphasized communication.
They drew up a formal company policy and instituted an IRA for
employees. They created weekly strategy meetings and demanded
cross-training, so that there were no more jobs at Hensley that only one
person knew how to do. They went through the process of gaining Women
Business Enterprise certification.
And Linda slowly but surely worked to assure employees that
the company would be all right, while she and her team worked to win back
some old customers and court new ones.
Manfred Maier was one of those clients who came on board right
after Earl's death. As manufacturing engineering manager for Blue Ash-based
metal-stamping company Fein Tool, he hires Hensley about a half-dozen times
a year to move and install major pieces of hydraulic and mechanical equipment.
It's often no easy task, he said. Some of the machines weigh
up to 100,000 pounds, and they're very expensive. The latest piece that
Hensley is helping with cost about $2 million.
"They're real reliable and careful, and we've had no
problems over the years with damage," Maier said. The moving and
installation jobs often are on short notice, sometimes just a day, and the
projects need to be done quickly. "For that kind of money, we want
that machine running as quickly as possible," Maier said.
At Ford Motor Co.'s transmission plant in Sharonville, Hensley
has been handling equipment since about 1997, said Robert Viessman, automation engineer. "They have a proven
track record, experience and the right management team," said Viessman. "We think they have the best equipment
of any of the local contractors and also seem to have more of the equipment
we need."
Hensley went through the demanding Ford qualification process
to be deemed a preferred vendor, he said, and serves as general contractor
for some renovation projects through Ford's Construction Commodities
Management program.
Through CCM, Chris Altman
Hensley said, his company provides turnkey services for a project that can
include everything from transportation, rigging, mechanical/electrical hookups,
fire protection and many other aspects that an industrial or manufacturing
client needs to streamline its vendor list and secure better rates and
markup prices.
Hensley hopes to bring the CCM approach to other customers and
expects that to be a revenue driver in the future.
All the hard work is paying off. Hensley Industries has
recorded increased millions in revenues in 2007 and will likely top that
for 2008.
"If he had lived just a few more years, he'd have seen
the groundwork that he laid take shape," he said. "He loaded the
truck, and all we have to do is drive it."
And Linda Hensley is proud of the way she and her stepsons
have made it work, despite the rough patches: "Was it worth it? Oh
God, yes! I love it!"
Hensley Industries is “ISO 9001:2000” Certified.
Certified WBE
Member SC&RA
Better Business Bureau Member
Cincinnati Chamber of
Commerce
Northern
Kentucky Chamber
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