Associated Industrial Riggers helps light up the revived Hotel Syracuse

SYRACUSE — R. Jerry Sanders recalls spending his junior prom at Hotel Syracuse. Standing underneath crystal chandeliers and donning a tuxedo, the then 17-year-old posed for a photo in Syracuse’s iconic hotel, a fat cigar resting between his fingers. 

Nearly 30 years later, as Hotel Syracuse takes on a new name (Marriott Syracuse Downtown) and a new look as part of a massive renovation, Sanders’ company has just reinstalled those same crystal chandeliers. Sanders, now 46, is chairman and CEO of Associated Industrial Riggers Corp. (AIR), an industrial machinery and systems installation company based in Syracuse that operates along the East and Gulf coasts.

“I know the history of that hotel,” Sanders says. “As a young kid in high school, I remember going to the prom there and I remember going to different things there with my parents as a kid.” 

AIR originated in Syracuse in 1982 when Donald Sanders, Jerry’s father, founded the company at the age of 47. In the same year, AIR opened up an office in the Rochester area and began pursuing jobs both in the Northeast and the South. Lifting and positioning heavy equipment and machinery, pipefitting, and metalworking are a few of the services AIR provides as a manufacturing equipment installer.

In August 2015, AIR opened up its fourth location in Houston. Housed in an 8,000-square-foot warehouse space, Sanders says the Texas office has seven full-time employees and is expected to drum up $2 million to $3 million in revenue in 2016. 

In the South, the majority of the jobs AIR works on involve industrial manufacturing and fabrication. One of AIR’s biggest clients is the oil and gas giant Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM). While AIR has steady customers in the Northeast, most of its growth is in the South, Sanders says. 

“My plans are to expand in the South,” Sanders adds. “That’s where the money is, and I follow the work and the money.”

In 2006, AIR made its first major move southward when it opened a 5,500-square-foot location in Georgia. Growth in its revenue and the number of available projects in the Gulf Coast states encouraged the company’s expansion into the southern half of the United States. Sanders says AIR has recently purchased an 18,000-square-foot facility in Bremen, Georgia to support that location’s growth in the past decade. The new space will accommodate 30 full-time employees, and Sanders expects that office to generate $4 million in revenue by the end of 2016. 

However, Sanders projects that his firm’s overall revenue will decline to $11 million this year from $14 million in 2015. Falling oil prices and the resulting decline in demand for oil-rigging equipment have slowed business, Sanders says. 

Industrial production in the United States fell 0.5 percent in February, the Federal Reserve reported. Low oil prices have dragged down mining and oil-well drilling more than 60 percent since 2014, according to a March 16 Associated Press story. 

Sanders bases his company’s projected 21 percent decrease in revenue in 2016 on what he describes as a slow economy last summer and a decrease in machinery purchases by companies. On the bright side, business since the start of 2016 has been much better than the past six months, he says, so his prediction may change. 

“The economy sucked last summer, and we’re a little below where we were last year,” Sanders says. “The low price of oil — things are very slow in Houston right now because that’s an oil-driven town.”

Back home, AIR faced a challenge of a different nature. Smaller jobs like the chandelier installation in Syracuse aren’t as heavy-duty as a rigging job, but hoisting refurbished antiques and expensive fixtures up 30 feet and securing them in front of a crowd of reporters and hotel executives is a challenging task.

“It’s a lot of risk with the value of the chandeliers in comparison to what we do every day,” Sanders says. “Some of those chandeliers are $100-grand apiece, so it takes careful control and delicate actions.”

AIR installed 10 restored chandeliers to the ceilings of Marriott Syracuse Downtown on March 8 in front of a small crowd after securing the job as the lowest bidder, Sanders says. Using a rigging apparatus and lifts, the chandeliers took five employees and a few days to install fully. Ten additional chandeliers will be installed in the upstairs ballroom next month. 

While Sanders is 30 years beyond that cigar, his connection to the hotel — and to Syracuse — sticks with him.

“To rig those chandeliers as an adult businessman — those things were hanging there since the 20s, and nothing had been changed except light bulbs,” Sanders says. “That’s an honor to do that.”