Better Built Truss Company Utilizes Boom Trucks and Swing Cab Cranes to Off-load and Place Their Wooden Roof and Floor Trusses By Brian Hoover, Senior Editor
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urabilt Truss started in 1964, and by the early 2000s, the company had tripled in size, enabling the owners to sell to Universal Forest Products in 2006. The housing and general building industry was booming in 2006, but the housing industry crashed by 2008, prompting the company to close its Riverbank plant in 2010. Shuttering the business meant that 37 hardworking, long-term employees were about to become a statistic, and that did not sit well with anyone, including general manager, Jeff Qualle. Jeff happened to mention the sad predicament to his longtime friend, Dave Sanders, who worked with Jeff to arrange the purchase of the assets and then moved the company to Ripon. With a change of name and location, the new entity, Better Built Truss Company (BBT), was formed in 2010 and began to thrive once again with 60 fulltime team members and a great location just off Highway 99 in Ripon. Today, the company 14
fluctuates between 125 to 150 employees, depending on the time of year. Alan Kosky has been the plant manager at Better Built Truss since 2012. He worked for the company under the previous name in the 90s through 2008 and has been in the truss industry for more than 20 years. “At BBT, we serve an approximate 100-mile radius, with the majority of our business located in the greater Sacramento area, and over the hill and on into the greater bay area,” says Kosky. “We manufacture wooden roof and floor trusses primarily for developers and framing contractors in the commercial, residential, custom and light industrial niches.” Kosky points out that their clients either pay for and manage the installation of the trusses themselves or pay BBT for craning services to erect floor and wall panels. “We use the latest technology and equipment to manufacture our products. This includes MiTek Industries’ software systems for
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Above: Better Built Truss appreciates their operator friendly and versatile Manitex 2281T, 22-ton capacity boom truck with 81 feet of boom seen here erecting a third floor roof system.
their plate manufacturing and software operating systems,” says Kosky. “It also includes the best crane and high reach machinery available. We primarily use boom trucks and swing cab cranes from a few trusted manufacturers and distributors.” According to Kosky, cranes are an integral part of their delivery system, and in Northern California, their contracts require plate line delivery. “Most of our support boom trucks consist of Peterbilt trucks with a fixed boom attached. We currently own seven boom trucks and two swing cab cranes, including a Manitex 2281T 22-ton capacity boom truck with 81 feet of boom, and a Manitex 40124 40-ton capacity swing cab crane with 124 feet of boom. We purchased both of these crane trucks from Coastline Equipment Crane Division out of Sacramento.” C A LCO N T R AC TO R .CO M