Who Webber is
Webber was founded in 1963 and started out mostly in highways and bridges. It moved its base to Houston in the late 1970s, was acquired by the Spanish infrastructure group Ferrovial in 2005, and later took the name Webber, LLC. Ferrovial's company page describes it as specializing in heavy civil, waterworks, energy and infrastructure management, headquartered in Houston with offices and projects in the United States and Canada. Its LinkedIn profile and recent job postings list The Woodlands, north of Houston, as its home office.
According to that page, Webber's heavy civil division won TxDOT's I-10 elevation project in Houston, and its waterworks group, formerly PLW Waterworks, won a pump station contract in Austin.
Two very different kinds of crane work
Roads and bridges
Raising a freeway or building new bridges means a long series of girder sets, cap and column work, and wall panels. Big picks over long reaches go to lattice boom crawlers, often walking with a load or working from mats on reclaimed ground. Hydraulic cranes handle the faster, lighter picks along the alignment.
Water and wastewater plants
Treatment plants and pump stations bring a different mix: precast basin walls and covers, large-diameter pipe, valves and pumps set into deep structures, and mechanical equipment lowered through hatches. The operator is often blind to the load once it goes below grade, so the signal person carries the lift. Rigging for pumps and pipe spools has to account for odd centers of gravity and lifting points designed for one direction of pull only.
Courses that fit civil and waterworks crews
- Crawler operators: the 40-hour lattice course prepares for the NCCCO lattice boom crawler written and practical exams, taken in our yard where that practical is given. Experienced crawler hands who need only exam preparation can choose the 20-hour version.
- Hydraulic crane operators: the 40-hour fixed/swing cab course works for people already running telescopic cranes; the 120-hour version is for newer operators.
- Pipe crews, carpenters and laborers who rig and signal: the 28-hour Rigger/Signal Person Certification Level I course prepares for NCCCO Rigger Level I and Signalperson.
The operator courses spend real time on the rules civil sites run on: OSHA Subpart CC, ASME B30.5 for mobile and locomotive cranes, ground conditions, and power line clearance. Highway jobs add another wrinkle: lifts near traffic need a defined swing area and a plan for what happens if a load has to be set down in a hurry. Treatment plant work adds confined, deep structures where the crane may sit on backfill next to a fresh excavation, so the operator has to ask how close the outriggers or tracks can safely come to the edge.
Distance and lodging
The school is at 304 Tunnell St in Seagoville, southeast of Dallas, roughly 240 road miles from Houston and The Woodlands by I-45. Crews from the Houston area usually stay nearby during class. The Premium Mobile Crane Operations Lattice Course offers optional room and board, which helps on a crawler course where seat time builds over several days. For employees working projects in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, a daily commute is usually practical. We only train in Seagoville; there is no on-site training at project locations.
How to enroll a Webber crew
A project manager or safety lead can request a group through company classes or by calling (214) 763-0513. Include each person's role, the cranes they run or work around, and when they can be spared from the job. We will recommend courses and match them to dates on the training schedule. Write to us through contact us for anything that needs a paper trail, like purchase orders.