OZ LIFTING PRODUCTS | PROJECT
Innovation drive S
teve Napieralski says you can never have a big enough garage. And he knows a thing or two about upsizing.
When we catch up with the president of OZ
Lifting Products, he is about to relocate his 20-year-old business, a manufacturer of davit cranes and industrial lifting equipment, five miles or so further south-east along the banks of the Mississippi River. It will be the fourth time the company has relocated, having been founded in December 2004 with two staff. “If you’re looking to expand, make sure it’s big enough. It’s like building a garage – it can never be big enough,” he quips. Witty, yes, but Napieralski is an earnest businessman too. From humble beginnings, akin to a suburban garage; today, he employs 25 people full-time and has a distributor network that spans North America. The new facility, appropriately located on Innovation Drive, not only sprawls across 40,000ft2
of Winona, but it
sits on a five-acre lot and is primed to facilitate further expansions. Innovation is a company cornerstone and is even signposted in its ‘Innovate. Elevate’ tagline. “We’re moving to the opposite side of town to an industrial park,” says Napieralski. “Winona is a small community and it’s exciting that we will continue to be able to call it home. The owner of the property learned that I was looking for an existing building or land to build on. He reached out to me, and the rest is history.” The sale went through over a year ago, but a significant renovation project was required and, after extensive demolition, a build-out didn’t
OCH meets Steve Napieralski, as the president of ever- growing OZ Lifting Products collects another set of keys. Innovative products inspire innovative solutions, he says.
commence until last autumn. Construction, including 5,000ft2
of office space, is expected to
last until the end of February this year. Excess inventory and manufacturing equipment has been moved across in a piecemeal fashion. “All the subcontractors are local to the area,” adds Napieralski, a graduate of Winona State University. “I like to keep as much business local as I can. All four of our facilities have been in the same town. It not only helps the community, but from a maintenance perspective it’s nice to have [subcontractors] that can take a call and come quickly to our facility.” The site will facilitate additional engineering capabilities, with room for more specialised equipment. Future expansions will enhance in-house manufacturing, more automation and advanced testing capabilities. A 9ft-deep pit, for example, is a notable addition because it will allow for live load testing. Napieralski says wider goals are increased safety and efficiency across the board for everyone on the team.
Davit crane pro OZ Lifting is best known for its range of davit cranes, including the 1,200lb-capacity CompOZite model that is made from advanced composite material and weighs only 83lb. The CompOZite Elite, meanwhile, is what Napieralski refers to as, “The world’s most innovative davit crane.” It’s hard to argue, given that it offers the same capacity as the other model, but with a total crane weight of only 37lb. Then there’s the recently relaunched Tele-Pro davit, available in 500lb,
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