History

The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny has played a major role in the mar­itime indus­try on the Great Lakes since its incor­po­ra­tion in New Jer­sey on July 7, 1899. The Com­pa­ny’s found­ing share­hold­ers com­prised a ver­i­ta­ble “Who’s Who” of the nation’s great indus­tri­al­ists of the day, includ­ing John D. Rock­e­feller, Jeptha H. Wade, and James R. Sin­clair, among oth­ers. Pop­u­lar­ly called “The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny” for its entire 125-year his­to­ry, the Com­pa­ny has been a sig­nif­i­cant marine oper­a­tions link in one of the major eco­nom­ic life­lines of North Amer­i­ca — the fourth sea­coast and the Great Lakes Sea­way Sys­tem. The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny has con­tin­u­ous­ly evolved to meet the chang­ing demands of the agri­cul­tur­al, steel, and con­struc­tion indus­tries, and the needs of the ships and tug/barge units that serve those indus­tries. The Great Lakes Group of Com­pa­nies also includes:

• Tugz Inter­na­tion­al LLC, found­ed in 1998, spe­cial­izes in ves­sel design, con­struc­tion, and chartering;
• Admi­ral Tow­ing & Barge Com­pa­ny, found­ed in 1999, is pri­mar­i­ly engaged in gov­ern­ment operations;
• Soo Line Han­dling Ser­vices, Inc., pro­vides line han­dling ser­vices at the US Army Corps of Engi­neers at the Soo Locks, Sault Ste. Marie, Michi­gan; and
• Wind Logis­tics Inc., a new­ly cre­at­ed com­pa­ny, par­tic­i­pates in the devel­op­ing off­shore wind tur­bine industry.

Since its found­ing, the Com­pa­ny was head­quar­tered in the Ter­mi­nal Tow­er in Cleve­land, Ohio until its move to its present loca­tion. The Com­pa­ny has always oper­at­ed a Cleve­land-based Ship­yard. Orig­i­nal­ly on Jef­fer­son Road in the Flats until the Great Cuya­hoga Riv­er fire in 1952 when it moved to the present site in the Old Riv­er Bed, the Ship­yard con­struct­ed many of its tugs and repaired all of the Tow­ing Company’s tugs and barges through­out its his­to­ry. Lat­er, in 1983, the Ship­yard entered the com­mer­cial ship repair busi­ness, but the scope and vol­ume of this busi­ness was restrict­ed due to the phys­i­cal size of the facil­i­ty and the lim­it­ed capac­i­ty of its equipment.

The Com­pa­ny decid­ed to embark on a bold expan­sion project to revi­tal­ize and expand its tra­di­tion­al mar­itime busi­ness­es. The Ship­yard Expan­sion Project is a four PHASE project which, at a total cost to date of $11.345 mil­lion, included:

• Land acqui­si­tion (now total­ing 7.26 acres with a poten­tial addi­tion­al 8.97 acres under envi­ron­men­tal eval­u­a­tion and con­tract total­ing 16.23 acres)
• Envi­ron­men­tal land reme­di­a­tion (from a for­mer Super­fund site)
• Bulk­head­ing (1,776 lin­ear feet)
• Ground sta­bi­liza­tion
• Con­struc­tion of a new head­quar­ters build­ing (7,768 square feet)
• Con­struc­tion of a new indoor state-of-the-art ship­yard facil­i­ty (10,917 square feet)
• Con­struc­tion of a con­crete rein­forced slip
• Acqui­si­tion and instal­la­tion of the 900-ton Travelift
• Con­struc­tion of a new 68-foot-high tem­po­rary Ship­yard facil­i­ty (10,500 square feet)

The Ship­yard Expan­sion Project demon­strates the Company’s com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment by retain­ing exist­ing jobs and cre­at­ing new jobs in the old-fash­ioned way – by cre­at­ing new busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties using tech­no­log­i­cal­ly advanced tools and equipment.

The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny, through the devel­op­ment of its Ship­yard and the for­ma­tion of its sub­sidiary com­pa­nies, found a way to con­tin­u­al­ly adapt and improve its ser­vices to the needs of each new day. As The Great Lakes Group today stands upon the achieve­ments of its his­toric past, it also faces the future as a chal­lenge to be met with the full resources at its command.