Project Highlight: Mount Coolidge, Custer State Park

VIKOR’s Director of Safety and Field Operations, Brandon Foster, and his crew, successfully completed a project atop Mount Coolidge in Custer, South Dakota where they were asked to decommission a 370’ guy tower in what proved to be a challenging location. This high risk job tested the group’s patience, abilities, and focus while proving to be a testament to the VIKOR method: “to reach a solution that is closest to ideal in a highly complex situation.”

Foster and his crew of tower hands completed the work for a customer who wanted them to remove the tower from the top of Mount Coolidge, inside Custer State Park. Foster said what made the decommissioning job interesting was the tower’s set up and surroundings.

“It sat in a congested work area. It was positioned in a way that there was no direct line of sight to the base of the tower,” Foster said. “It was old and the condition of the structure was unknown. The guy-wires were intersected in an adjacent tower’s guy-wires, requiring a gin pole to be removed, and most of the crew was unfamiliar with gin pole operations.”

The crew involved an engineer in the rigging plans to make sure that the structure could support the imposed forces and calculated the loading of gin pole and rigging equipment to be used and set up limitations and precautions for the operation. They also inspected and maintained the equipment that would be used, and created a plan for the crew’s operation.

The crew experienced a couple setbacks during the execution of the plan. There was uncertainty of the tower’s condition and the engineers could only tell them what it should be able to do if it were in new condition. 

The job on Mount Coolidge needed to be done carefully to ensure it could be carried out correctly.

“The process needed to go slow and was delicate due to the intersecting guy-wires from the adjacent tower,” Foster said. “It involved teaching a new process throughout the job and sharing tips and tricks learned on prior work similar to this job.”

Foster said that this project was a great learning experience for him and his crew. 

“Calm seas don’t make skilled sailors, this was some rough water to conquer and everyone came out better and more educated in the end,” Foster said. “The work was completed safely and the customer was happy, both of which are top priorities at VIKOR.”

Though a challenging project, it gave Foster and his crew the opportunity to travel to and perform work near the VIKOR office in Rapid City.

“I was able to hang with my boys on the west side of the state, and I had the opportunity to teach our field staff some new skills. It doesn’t get any better than that,” said Foster.

Brandon Foster has been with VIKOR for over 15 years. As Director of Safety and Field Operations, Foster’s primary responsibility is to train and instruct field workers on how to safely execute their work. His ultimate goal is to bring all his workers home in the same condition they leave every day while ensuring that they feel proud of the work that they performed. Foster added, “there is nothing quite like the hoots, hollers, hugs, high-fives and words of gratification after a big project like this.”

“I love this line of work, I love our guys, and I love VIKOR,” Foster said. “The ultimate gratification is being able to be the guy passing on the tribal knowledge that Todd Thorin (VIKOR Director of Training), Craig Snyder (CEO and Founder) and Bart Roberts (Co-Founder) passed on to me. I love being that guy at VIKOR. I don’t know many who have had the opportunity to live in the lessons that I have and I am grateful for that.”