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From the Americas to Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, Waco Boom Manufacturing LLC has built a solid reputation in what company sales director Geoff Abel calls a “niche market” for filament-wound, insulated fiberglass booms. “If you’re working near power lines and up in the air, we’re trying to make a boom for that,” he adds.

From left: Waco Boom’s Bob Simon, Geoff Abel and Jon Woods in the company’s warehouse. All photos courtesy of Waco Boom.

“This is all we do, so it’s truly a niche market, and we are known to be the best in the world,” Abel continues. “We hear it from our international customers frequently. In fact, due to the growing needs to build overhead power lines and increased safety standards, our international orders increased 180% over the last three years since I’ve headed up the sales department.

A humble history

Waco Boom Manufacturing was founded by Vince Hanke. From humble beginnings and his experience with Westinghouse using fiberglass, Hanke developed his first insulated boom by hand in Alliance, Ohio. In 1974, Hanke began G&H Fiberglass and started selling his first booms on a small scale. As the number of customers grew, Hanke moved production – and his family – to Waco, Texas, in 1988, and renamed the company Waco Boom. Though Vince Hanke has since passed away, the business remains family owned under the leadership of CEO George Smith, Hanke’s son, whom he personally mentored.

Over the ensuing decades, Waco Boom’s reputation for “dependability, innovation and safety, as well as the history of the brand” are what set the company apart and in a league of its own. Vince’s strategy was to constantly innovate so that the competition was copying Waco Boom’s methods and products from five to 10 years prior. According to Abel, “In the early days, the hand-laid booms were rated at 20-30 ksi (kilo – or one thousand – pounds per square inch) in terms of strength, and now we’re achieving 50-70 ksi-plus, depending on the configuration. Both our chief operations officer, Bob Simon, and our newly appointed chief technology officer, Jon Woods, started off as engineers with Waco Boom decades ago,” he adds, noting that they are constantly fine-tuning processes and technology to ensure a safer, more durable and higher-strength product.

Fiberglass booms in the Waco warehouse.

Evolving technology

COO Bob Simon explains, “The early booms in the industry used room-temperature cure-resin systems, so they were not fully cured and would go out in the field and the sun would bake them into an ‘arched configuration,’ what the composite industry calls ‘creep.’ The switch then was made to stronger and more durable heat-cured epoxy resin.

“Filament winding our booms was the next evolutionary step in advancing the strength of the booms, and with the multi-axis machines, this allowed us to further tailor the strength of the booms to customer requirements,” Simon notes. “And our unique molding technology allowed us to make the most consistent walls and corners possible, with improved boom strength (glass-to-resin ratio) and reduced voids or inclusions, so that also improved the dielectric properties.”

Safety first

“Waco Boom builds filament-wound fiberglass booms to be used on machines such as aerial lifts,” Abel reiterates. “The reason fiberglass booms are used (rather than metal, as previously used) is because of the dielectric properties creating an insulator between the phase to ground, protecting the operator in the basket and anyone in close proximity to the machine on the ground from any potential threat of electrocution.

“When natural disasters hit, line workers are expediting repairs in hazardous conditions and relying on our booms, because the power lines can be live,” he continues. “This also is the case with tree care crews doing line maintenance and ROW (right-of-way) work. The demand to be able to work around live wires is growing around the world. The option to turn off the grid to make a repair or perform routine maintenance isn’t always feasible anymore, especially in areas with hospitals and nursing homes where they don’t have that option.”

Quality inspector Ruben Wong testing a boom.

Standards and testing

With safety at the core of its mission, Waco Boom maintains rigorous standards for testing its booms and conducting final inspections, says Abel. He notes that Waco Boom performs multiple dielectric tests on its booms, up to 100,000 volts.

“We are very mindful of meeting or exceeding ANSI A92.2 standards,” he notes. “The U.S. was historically at the forefront for safety around live power lines. And over time, the ANSI committee has worked with international standards such as IEC and EN, as well as OSHA, to continually improve worker safety. In fact, Jon Woods actually has a spot on the (ANSI A92) standards committee. We want to be at the forefront of helping to make things safer.”

Abel also notes that, because of the importance of safety and zero tolerance for failure, the same technology is used in manufacturing an A92.2 category D (<46 kV) insulated boom as is used in the category A units (765 kV). “The tree care industry also is governed by OSHA and ANSI for minimum safe approach distances to power lines, and we regularly work with companies to develop booms that can meet these requirements while remaining competitive with the rest of the industry,” says Abel.

Applications

Waco Boom manufactures insulated booms ranging from 2 to 36 feet in length, depending on the application needed. These include bucket trucks, digger derricks, compact tracked or wheeled lifts and the tree-trimmer machines used in line clearance.

In addition to tree work, filament-wound fiberglass booms are instrumental in utilities transmission and distribution work, construction projects and even agriculture maintenance and fruit picking. “Like I said, if you’re working near power lines and are up in the air, we probably make a boom for that,” Abel reiterates.

The company’s website sums up Waco Boom’s mission well. “When safety near power lines is non-negotiable, an insulated boom becomes a necessity.” And without a doubt, Waco Boom has just the equipment designed to get the job done safely.

Patricia Chaudoin has been a freelance writer/editor for more than four decades, in areas as disparate as tree care, golf, weddings, luxury travel and international non-profit NGOs. She has been writing for TCI Magazine since 2016.

TCI Magazine’s Corporate Member Spotlight is a feature available only to TCIA corporate members. This article is sponsored by Waco Boom. Contact advertising@tcia.org for more information.