A Specialized Transport & Rigging truck transports a 76-ton oil field module at Mile 57 of the Elliott Highway, bound for Prudhoe Bay.
eing a freight hauler in Alaska is no small job. Winter places heavy demands on drivers. Snow and ice, nature’s Zamboni, turn roads into rinks; brutal subzero mercury readings push engines and vehicle parts to their limits; and the long, dark nights limit visibility.
All of this takes place on the state’s long, lonely highways, which offer ever fewer roadside services as one travels north. Aid-providing waysides all but disappear once trucks reach the Dalton Highway, which leads to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. Road conditions vary from fair to difficult, no matter the time of year, as permafrost, flooding, and other natural forces add potholes and frost heaves to the mix. And then there’s the blinding, low-lying sun that skims the horizon at windshield level, especially in the Arctic.
For Curtis Spencer, president of Specialized Transport & Rigging based in Big Lake, there’s only one way to describe it all: “It’s extremely challenging. Period.”
STR loads its trucks with “a lot of equipment, a lot of cranes,” Spencer says, adding that other large items are also pulled by the company’s fleet of semis. “Tanks, to modules, to pipe racks. Things like that. Big loads. Twenty [foot] wide stuff, mostly. That’s what we do the best.”
STR was founded in 2014. Spencer had been a minority owner of Carlile Transportation until 2013, when that company was sold to Seattle, Washington-based Saltchuk. At that point, he began looking for a new venture.
“I was working on projects for the North Slope in Seattle,” he recalls. “And I came back and just decided, ‘I want to do something different.’”
Spencer drew on his extensive experience in freight hauling and a lifetime in Alaska as a springboard for fulfilling his vision, he says. “I’ve been in the industry for forty-five years, born and raised in Fairbanks. And it was a pretty simple thing to get it rolling.”
There was only one hurdle he needed to clear, however. “We didn’t have trucks. I was using friends that had trucks. We were using owner-operators.”
To build a fleet and work out other major details, Spencer found help from his friend Dave Cruz, owner of Cruz Construction. “We got trucks ordered and Mr. Cruz helped us out with getting other things in place,” he says, adding that “the company actually owes a debt to Mr. Cruz for all the help that he gave us.”
A decade later, STR has eighty trucks, with some based in the Lower 48, bringing loads across the country from the East Coast, Oklahoma, Texas, and elsewhere. The freight is either driven through Canada or brought to Seattle where the containers are shipped north on a barge.
“Typically, Valdez for the super-load stuff,” Spencer says, explaining how the largest items are brought to Alaska. “Truckload stuff comes up via TOTE and Matson.”
STR has developed strong relationships with clients all over the state. Among them is North Star Equipment Services in Anchorage, which Spencer describes as “a good partner,” adding, “we move a lot of their cranes around for them. Great folks.”
Brad Robertson, president of North Star, agrees. Citing STR’s experienced staff, many of them longtime acquaintances of his, he described the company as “very easy to work with, reliable, and accommodating to whatever our various needs are.”
For Spencer, this cuts to the heart of the matter. Providing the best service possible, he says, is what drives him and his crew.
“One thing that we, the team, say is, we like to be successful and complete what we say we’re going to complete on time. And we’ll stay true to our focus.”