Meet Pat Dandridge
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about how our company, Anderson Crane and Bridge Technologies, LLC, came to be. A native Floridian, I was born in Lakeland, just as one of the largest storms in U.S. history, Hurricane Donna, was crossing the state of Florida. My father, a Red Cross volunteer, was busy setting up shelters for storm victims even as my mother gave birth to me, the last of four children in yearly succession. They had decided to honor the doctor who delivered each of us and gave me the middle name “Anderson.” Hurricane Donna went on record as the largest and most devastating storm to hit the state of Florida prior to Hurricane Andrew in 1992. My mother loves to tell the story of my birth and always ends by saying, “That child was born under a storm and has been a whirlwind ever since.”
As an adult a couple of decades later I went to work for a large equipment company in Tampa, which was the beginning of a long and lucrative career in heavy equipment sales and rentals. I eventually moved to Atlanta, where I joined the sales force at All Crane, Inc. and met my beautiful wife of over 18 years, Jolie Cooper, whose family owns Cooper Music in Atlanta, GA.
After spending more than 20 years in the heavy equipment industry I felt I was ready to start my own company and began to look for a niche market upon which I could build. When I learned that funding for TEA-21 (Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century) was up for reauthorization by Congress early that year, I took notice. At stake was $200 billion to be divided among the states’ DOT’s to build, repair and replace the nation’s highways and bridges.
As I researched this legislation, one key phrase came up again and again. The Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, begun almost fifty years prior, was the buzz word for me. When I thought about the age of the bridges and the increased weight and volume of traffic, it seemed a no-brainer. With over 60% of our bridges built using older engineering safety standards, it was clear to me that bridge inspection and repair had never been more vital to the safety of our nation’s travelers.
I was familiar with Hydra Platform’s under bridge access platforms and was impressed with their ease of use, range of motion and safety record. I realized then that I had found that niche market I wanted. I could supply under bridge access equipment, with or without operators, marketing to companies doing bridge inspections and repairs, hanging conduit for fiber optics, utilities and the like.
In 2004, I left All Crane and started my own company, which would later become Anderson Crane and Bridge Technologies, LLC. Since the company began, Congress has been slow in funding the legislation it passed. TEA-21, which began in 1998 under Clinton’s administration, was impacted often in the next several years, by the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, the war in Iraq, fluctuations in power within the government, and Hurricane Katrina, to name a few. TEA-21 was eventually reintroduced as SAFETEA-LU, but funding and implementation was still notoriously slow.
Still, I believed in the equipment I acquired and, the more I learned about the condition of our bridges, the more I worried about the safety of the American public. In the early years, I often expressed my frustration to family and friends, wondering aloud if it would take the collapse of a major bridge to draw attention to the need for inspection and repair.
Then, on Wednesday August 1, 2007, the unthinkable happened. The I-35 bridge over the Mississippi River near Minneapolis, Minnesota suddenly collapsed sending cars, trucks and buses along with concrete and steel sixty-four feet into the rushing waters below. The bridge, a 1967 steel-deck truss design, had shown signs of wear as early as 1990 and had received a sufficiency rating of “structurally deficient” in 2005, and repair was estimated at three million dollars. Since then, fingers have been pointed, blame assigned, debates launched, careers ruined, emergency funding approved and victims buried. Still, our citizens are left with more questions than answers.
Now, in 2009, we are entering a season of change with a federal administration led by newly elected President Barack Obama, who promises to address the issues of our failing economy with a stimulus package that puts Americans to work and funds the much-needed construction and repair of our nation’s highways and bridges. I don’t claim to be a fortune-teller by any stretch of the imagination, but I am clearly forward-thinking and determined. Since my company’s inception in 2004, I have tripled my inventory of bridge inspection units and am prepared to meet the demand for bridge access equipment.
We have a system in place that assures prompt delivery of well-maintained and insured equipment. We will deliver to your job site and train your operator, or provide an operator for you if necessary. We are committed to providing excellent service and state-of-the-art equipment to companies who want to be “shovel ready” when the funds become available on the state and local level.
I wish you all much success in the future as we work together to rebuild our great nation’s roads, resources and reputation for excellence and leadership.
Warm regards,
Pat Dandridge
InspectABridge.com AKA Anderson Crane & Bridge Technologies Inc.
770 315 6993 or 706 283 4401 phone
706 283 4859 fax
pat@inspectabridge.com Email
Nationwide Crane & Under Bridge work platform Sales & Rental.
