By Jack DeGange

Roger Gilman remembers the date as though it were yesterday: March 21, 1982. It was a Sunday, the day the world changed at Miller Construction Company.

O. W. Miller, known to everyone as Chick, loved to fly. In 1946, soon after he finished a project—a small bridge spanning Mill Brook on Route 12-A in Cornish, N.H.—for his father’s Massachusetts construction company, Miller decided to stay in the area and establish his own company. When he laid out the firm’s operating base between Route 5 and the Connecticut River about three miles south of Windsor, Vt., he included his own landing strip.

When Gilman came to work on that Monday morning 20 years ago, he carried tragic news. Miller and his good friend, auto dealer Dave Hall who owned Gateway Motors in White River Junction, had been killed when Miller became disoriented while trying to fly through a snowy whiteout and crashed in North Stratford, N.H. They were en route home from a weekend of North Country snowmobiling.

“Chick flew everywhere, nearly every day. If he had business in Lebanon, he didn’t drive. He would jump into his plane and fly up the river,” recalled Gilman. A civil engineer, Gilman grew up in central Vermont and had become Miller’s “right hand” after joining the company in 1964.

“I woke up that Monday morning and came to work,” said Gilman. “Chick was gone.” He managed the company during four years as the transition of ownership took place. Gilman became president in 1986 when Beck & Bellucci, a construction firm in Franklin, N.H., that serves the central area of New Hampshire, became the majority owner.

Miller Construction’s business is much the same today as during the Chick Miller era—building with steel and concrete and providing crane services to contractors, including Trumbull-Nelson, throughout the Connecticut River Valley. Gone, however, is the foundation work for the heavy machines used by the numerous manufacturers that once dominated the business landscape in Windsor, Springfield and Claremont. “It made for a lot of inside winter work,” said Gilman. “It’s a sign of the changing times.”

As a bridge builder, Miller works on a range of state and municipal projects throughout the region. To the average observer, though, it’s the fleet of red and white hydraulic cranes, moving methodically along a highway to construction sites throughout the region, that make the Miller name so recognizable. Rental of cranes represents about one-third of Miller’s business.

Miller maintains seven cranes, both hydraulic and conventional (with booms to 200 feet) that operate on a schedule that can involve long-term work, say on a bridge project, or “right now,” as when there’s the need to fit into a tight time frame of a fluid construction schedule. Renting a crane is a pricey proposition: You don’t want to waste an hour.

Miller Construction’s business is much the same today as during the Chick Miller era—building with steel and concrete and providing crane services to contractors…

“Unloading and positioning modular homes has become a substantial part of our business,” said Gilman. It’s what he refers to as “on call” service. “We’re driven by someone else’s schedule. Our goal is to be responsive and accommodate a contractor’s needs.”

With companies like Trumbull-Nelson, the use of cranes is more of a planned proposition, since they’re used primarily for setting structural steel and trusses for commercial projects.

Perhaps the most unusual job that has utilized a Miller crane occurred several years ago when the historic covered bridge between Windsor and Cornish was restored.

“We had to put a crane on a barge in the river to help erect the false work used to suspend the bridge while the underlying truss work was repaired,” said Gilman, describing the long, delicate project.
Miller’s hydraulic cranes range in size from 70 to 40 tons. “A 70-ton crane is a good size for this area.

They’re not the biggest made but they fit the needs of virtually any job in this market,” said Gilman.
Cranes, unlike excavating equipment that takes a beating, can have a long lifetime. “We have one crane that’s been in service since 1951,” said Gilman. “Proper maintenance is the key.”

A team of operators with years of experience is equally important. These days, Miller has six crane operators, all who have grown in the company and represent more than a century of experience.
They include Red Murphy who has been with Miller for over 40 years and Dan Ferland who has been a Miller operator for three decades. “I don’t think there’s a contractor in this area who doesn’t know and trust these men,” said Gilman.

“Operating a crane is a terribly responsible job.”