Airpes America hires technical director as global pandemic eases

Airpes has three principle lines of business; pre-engineered weighing and monitoring kits for overhead cranes, including load cells, overload protection, readouts, and data loggers; engineered lifting devices for wind turbine erection; and engineered below-the-hook devices, such as coil grabs, rotating blocks, and magnets. Most orders include product design, build and documentation. 

Lozano completed the transition from the company’s headquarters in Barcelona, Spain; the dual-citizen is fluent in both English and Spanish. As the global pandemic eases, Lozano’s role will evolve into a site-based, customer-facing position. 

“Airpes wins work by providing a more personalized experience, so having a field-based team means we can cover more bases for our customers and support our dealers. I often have to be the go-between for engineering teams at the factory and the customer. I speak a few dialects of Spanish, and received all of my training at the factory, so I work with them frequently. I don’t go out and sell the work, but I have to interface with customer engineers and field labour teams, such as ironworkers,” said Lozano. 

“I’ve been at the headquarters recently but am eager to be back on site; we are starting to visit customers again as essential workers. Historically, I have spent more time in wind power but the industrial crane side of the market has been growing in importance. We are a growing company and I love the feeling of building something. Our customers expect us to deliver a whole package and that’s a challenge I rise to.” 

Lozano recently leveraged the breadth of his skillset on a number of projects, including a capacity upgrade of hulking lifting attachments for General Electric by removing a 40,000lbs diesel-electric-hydraulic lifting apparatus from its shipping container, which was then retrofitted with a global system for mobile communications (GSM) connectivity, and capacity-enhanced fittings, before being tested for functionality.  

The GSM connectivity allowed engineers at the factory to log in remotely and monitor the upgrades and finetune the controls. Overall, approximately 300 hours were put into the upgrade in four days. 

Other projects include capability-expanding upgrades for a customer in South Carolina, where a 120,000lbs capacity transfer car was given upgrades that better matched the duty cycle the equipment was realizing. 

“We’re looking to Alex to commission equipment, inspect and make repairs, and help program proprietary devices. He’s getting more proficient at looking at applications and helping the sales team recommend a specific execution or bill of materials. In all of those endeavors, it helps him and us greatly that he is bilingual and able to communicate with all points of our supply chains,” said Tad Dunville, GM, Airpes Americas.