Tall towers spur unique competition
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NORTH JACKSON -- A new competition is coming to the Mahoning Valley in June -- one that will take competitors to greater heights.
Tri County Tower of North Jackson and STG Communications of Columbiana will both host a competition called Tough Tower for tower technicians, which would only be the second of its kind across the country. At this time, the competition is accepting applications for competitors and sponsors.
The event will feature seven teams competing in various events that simulate the work tower technicians do every day on the job, including installing antenna systems and rigging.
There also will be a rescue event, which is what mostly comprised a similar competition in Phoenix, Ariz. In the first year of that competition, called the Tower Rodeo Challenge, Tri County Tower placed second, behind a professional rescue company. This year, the third year of the Arizona competition, a team from Tri County Tower earned gold in two of the eight events.
"These guys right here in the Valley, when put up against top notch guys all over the country, we come in the top few percent every time," Tri County Tower CEO Chris Thomas said. "We have all this talent right here in the Valley and that's one of the reasons we want to put on this competition."
It will be held at Tri County Tower on Mahoning Avenue on June 10 and 11. Thomas said all teams will have to be certified by the National Association of Tower Erectors, which means they meet certain safety requirements.
Two employees at Tri County Tower went to the competition in Phoenix last weekend -- Dylan Hartzell, 30, of Youngstown, and Nick Nuttall, 20, of Poland. They said they enjoyed going, but because the competition was geared toward safety and rescues, not the typical work they do, they didn't think they had the best chance to show off their skills.
"In the work we do, it's absolutely vital to know how to rescue people, but that's something we mostly keep in our back pockets," Hartzell said. He is a foreman and has been working with the company for three-and-a-half years.
For its own competition, Tri County Tower already has one training tower that is 60 feet tall and might be installing another.
The business has been a fixture of the Mahoning Valley since 1982 and has been at its current location since 2003. Thomas' father-in-law was one of the men who founded the company and he took over as owner and CEO in May 2018. In the last four years, Thomas said the company has grown 40 percent.
He said being a tower technician is not a job for everyone. It takes a special kind of person.
"If the world is the military, these guys' work would be the special forces," Thomas said of his workers. "At the end of the work day, they are the only ones that did what they did that day."
Before someone can get into the tower industry, Tri County Tower makes them do a test climb to make sure they can handle the heights -- this includes hanging off the tower mid-air. Thomas said this is the easiest day in a technician's career, so they have to be comfortable with the heights before doing anything else.
The tallest tower Tri County Tower services in the Mahoning Valley is a television tower in Youngstown, which reaches 1,400 feet. The local tower company has sent its workers all around Ohio, to various states and even to the Caribbean.
"Climbing towers is just how they get to work," Thomas said. "Once they're up there, their work is very intricate and delicate and it's high stakes. If they mess up, there are huge consequences."