A Brief History of Tulsa Winch

 

Occasionally, I’m asked a question about the history of Tulsa Winch. I will attempt to document what I know about this subject. For those who may not know, I worked for this company for 28 years, from June 1970 to June 1998. Most of my career there was in sales, the last eleven years as part owner.

The company was founded in 1929 by a gentleman by the name of Harley Lee Pray. He was born in Texas in 1895 and had lived in Wichita, Kansas, before moving to Tulsa. While living in Wichita, he had become good friends with Harvey Pinaire, who operated a truck salvage business there. It is not known whether Pray worked for Pinaire, but it is certainly possible.

Harley Pray, ca 1938

In 1929, Pray moved from Wichita to Tulsa and started a truck salvage business at 731 E. 1st Street. Mr. Pray discovered that the rear axles from Ford Model AA trucks could be converted into excellent winches for the fledgling oilfield industry. He began manufacturing these winches under the company name Tulsa Winch Manufacturing Co., Inc.

As the market for winches grew, Mr. Pray purchased three additional adjacent buildings and eventually had a total of 79,000 square feet of manufacturing space. Business continued to boom, and when World War II broke out, winches for military trucks were in high demand by the government. In fact, in 1943, the company received the prestigious Army-Navy "E" Award for excellence in manufacturing. Only 4,283 companies, approximately 5% of all suppliers, received this award.

After the war ended, Mr. Pray was experiencing health problems and decided to sell Tulsa Winch. In 1946, he found a buyer in Vickers, Inc., one of the world's largest manufacturers of hydraulic pumps and motors. The company had been founded in Los Angeles in 1921 by Harry Vickers, a pioneer in hydraulic technology and the designer of the axial piston pump. In 1937, Sperry Corporation purchased Vickers, and Harry Vickers became president of the combined company.

Over the years, Tulsa Winch underwent several name changes, including Tulsa Products Division of Vickers and, later, Vickers Tulsa Division. In July 1955, Sperry Corporation merged with Remington Rand, the office equipment manufacturer, forming Sperry Rand Corporation.

In 1969, Vickers Tulsa Division purchased a large warehouse at 7217 E. Pine Street in Tulsa. The building had previously been a Hale-Halsell food warehouse and was vacant at the time. The new plant contained 132,000 square feet, all under one roof. This was a substantial improvement over the old facility, where moving people and materials among four separate buildings could be tedious and sometimes dangerous. Forklifts continually traveled back and forth across First Street.

At the time of the move, employment at the Tulsa plant was approximately 300. This number fluctuated considerably with the ups and downs of the oilfield industry, which was Tulsa Winch's largest market. Products manufactured at the Tulsa plant included worm gear and planetary winches, power take-offs, and planetary gearboxes.

I went to work there in June 1970 as an inside sales coordinator. At that time, Russ Dupuis was the General Manager. Like several other senior staff members, he had previously worked for Vickers in Detroit and had been transferred to Tulsa as a promotion. Similarly, the Marketing Manager, Chet Lenik, had also been transferred from Detroit.

All winches and speed reducers manufactured in Tulsa received consecutive serial numbers. In 1970, the serial numbers had reached approximately 250,000.

In June 1971, I was promoted to outside sales and transferred to a field office in Detroit. A year and a half later, in October 1972, I received another promotion, this time to Market Research Manager, and returned to Tulsa. After several more years and promotions, I became Marketing Manager for the Tulsa plant in September 1983.

The next three years brought some of the biggest changes in the company's history, including a complete change in ownership.

It began when Sperry Corporation sold Vickers, including the Tulsa Winch product line, to Libbey-Owens-Ford, the automotive glass manufacturer. The Tulsa operation was consolidated with a Vickers plant in Joplin, Missouri, under the leadership of Al Blaker. Blaker was charged with selling off the Tulsa operation.

The result was that the power take-off product line was sold to Muncie Power Products, which already controlled virtually all the PTO sales. The plant on East Pine Street was also sold to Muncie.

The planetary drive product line was sold to Funk Manufacturing in Coffeyville, Kansas, which already manufactured its own planetary gearboxes. The product line had not performed particularly well in Tulsa and continued its lackluster performance at Funk. As a point of interest, Funk was later acquired by John Deere.

The Tulsa Winch product line, which is the principal subject of this history, was sold in October 1986 to a group of three investors:

• Thomas E. "Tom" Naugle, an outside investor

• Ronald L. "Ron" Hoffman, who had been the Manufacturing Manager

• Roy E. "Edd" Alexander, who had been the Marketing Manager

Tom Naugle was the principal investor and provided most of the capital necessary to purchase the company. He had never previously been involved with Tulsa Winch and did not take an active role in its day-to-day management, although he and his wife, Barbara, maintained offices in the new plant. Tom's expertise was in finance and investing, and his participation made the acquisition possible.

Ron Hoffman had joined the Vickers organization and worked his way up to Manufacturing Manager at Tulsa. Following the acquisition, he became President of the new company and assumed responsibility for its operations.

I had joined Tulsa Winch in 1970 and was serving as Marketing Manager at the time of the acquisition. With the formation of the new company, I became Vice-President of Sales and Marketing.

The new business was incorporated as Tulsa Winch, Inc., and operations were moved to a smaller facility at 9260 Broken Arrow Expressway in Tulsa. The building contained approximately 62,000 square feet.

9260 Broken Arrow Expressway

The new company started with only thirteen employees, most of whom had worked at the Vickers Tulsa plant. Sales during the first year were approximately $3 million. Business grew steadily, and by 1996, employment had increased to approximately 70 people, with annual sales of about $12 million. Thus, in its first ten years, the company had quadrupled its annual sales and increased employment more than fivefold.

As another point of reference, the original serial number sequence had reached approximately 420,000 when the new company was formed in 1986. To distinguish products manufactured by the new Tulsa Winch from those made under previous ownership, a different serial numbering system was adopted. The new system used the year and month of manufacture, followed by the consecutive number of the product manufactured that month.

In 1996, the three owners decided it was time to sell the company. A brief search produced several prospective buyers, but the most appealing was Dover Corporation.

Dover had achieved much of its earlier success in the elevator business, but its emphasis had shifted toward acquiring well-run industrial companies with established management teams. This philosophy appealed to us because it offered the opportunity for Tulsa Winch to continue operating with considerable independence.

As a point of interest, in 1998 Dover announced plans to spin off its elevator business. The company subsequently decided to sell the business to Thyssen Industrie AG of Germany, and the sale was completed in January 1999.

Upon completion of the Tulsa Winch sale to Dover in 1996, Tom Naugle went on to pursue other interests. Ron Hoffman and I continued to manage Tulsa Winch until June 1998, when I decided to take early retirement. By that time, Dover had been convinced of the need for a new manufacturing facility, and plans were underway for its construction.

In 1999, Tulsa Winch moved into a brand-new manufacturing plant in Jenks, Oklahoma, just south of Tulsa and adjacent to U.S. Highway 75.

Jenks Plant

Apparently, Dover was pleased with its Tulsa Winch acquisition because it subsequently went on something of a winch company buying spree. Acquisitions included DP Winch and Gear Products in Tulsa, Pullmaster and Lantec in western Canada, and Greer in California. These acquisitions substantially expanded Dover's presence in the winch and related equipment markets.

Ron Hoffman, the only remaining principal from the 1986 Tulsa Winch acquisition, continued to advance within Dover Corporation. He eventually became Chief Executive Officer of Dover Resources and later President and Chief Operating Officer of Dover Corporation.

On November 5, 2004, Dover announced that Ron would become Chief Executive Officer of Dover Corporation, effective January 1, 2005. It was quite a remarkable career progression, from Tulsa Winch manufacturing management to the leadership of a major international industrial corporation.

Tom Naugle passed away in 2021 at the age of 82. Ron Hoffman and I are both retired and living in the Tulsa area.

Looking back, Tulsa Winch has had a remarkable history. What began in 1929 as a small operation making winches from salvaged truck axles grew into an internationally recognized manufacturer of winches and related equipment. Along the way, it survived the Great Depression, contributed to the war effort during World War II, weathered numerous oilfield downturns, and passed through several changes in ownership.

I consider myself fortunate to have spent 28 years with the company and to have participated in an important chapter of its history.

Roy E. "Edd" Alexander
October 20, 2026

Work Adventures

 During my 28 years at Tulsa Winch, I had a lot of boring times but I also had a few adventures.  Let me tell you about four of them.

The Inclined Railway

In chronological order, the first one was probably my trip to Pittsburgh, PA.  We got  a call from the maintenance foreman at the Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh who needed some help with one of his Tulsa gearboxes.  The only way I can describe this apparatus is that it is like a trolley built at an extreme angle and it traverses a mountainside in Pittsburgh.  Here is a picture of it.

Fortunately, our gearbox wasn't used to raise and lower the trolley but only to change out the cable every so often when the maintenance schedule calls for it.  I don't remember today the frequency the cable was changed but you can imagine that it was often.  It has been in operation since May, 1877 and they have gone through a bunch of cable in that 150 years.

The Coal Mine

The next memorable trip was into a coal mine in southern Utah.  Again, the maintenance people were having problems with one of our products and called us to help solve them.  My memory is somewhat sketchy but I believe the mine was operated by Utah Power and Light.  Of interest was that the coal traveled by conveyor belt directly to the nearby power plant and thus was never hauled by truck or by train.

We entered the mine through a horizontal mine shaft and were riding in an Isuzu diesel pickup.  My escort told me that the reason these pickups were used is because, being diesel, they had no ignition, thereby  eliminating a possible source of coal dust explosion.  We had to drive about half a mile back into the mine and, every so often, we would stop at a call box where my escort would call in and report our location.  The maintenance man told me this was in case there was an explosion or cave-in, the approximate location of everyone would be known.

Before we went into the mine, we had to go through a 30 minute orientation on how to use supplemental oxygen generators.  Fortunately, we needed none of this and I soon had their problem resolved.  I sure was glad to get out of that mine though!

The Drill Ship

Another exciting adventure was my helicopter ride 120 miles out into the Gulf.  Again, we were having a problem with one of our gearboxes on a semi-submersible drill ship, the Diamond M Century.  Diamond M was the name of the drilling company operating the platform.

This journey began by me driving to Houma, Louisiana, and catching a ride in a Petroleum Helicopters Inc. (PHI).  It was a Hughes 500 model and was extremely loud.  In order to talk to the pilot, I had to use a headset.  We landed about halfway out on an unmanned platform to refuel and the pilot told me that I had two choices: either get out and pump the fuel or he could do it but, if he did, we would have to wait 20 minutes for the turbine to cool down.  I decided I could pump the fuel.

We got to the drill ship, I looked at the gearbox and approved their proposed fix, and flew back to Houma.

The Nuclear Power Plant

The last adventure that comes to mind is my trip to Arkansas One, a nuclear power plant located in Russellville, Arkansas.  Once again, they had a Tulsa Winch, in this case a TP1 planetary model, which they were having problems with and asked us to come down and look at it.

In a couple of days, I drove from Tulsa to Russellville and met with the man who had called me.  That's when I found out that the winch was at the top of one of their two reactors, some 200 feet in the air!  The only way up was by climbing a ladder up the side of the vessel (while it was running).  At least there was a landing every 50 feet where you could stop and rest.

Before making the climb, I had to lay in a stainless steel tub and be scanned for nuclear waste.  This scan was repeated after coming back down from the reactor.  We made the climb and, when we got to the top, I discovered that the winch I was supposed to look at was at the end of a 15 foot I-beam hanging from the top of the reactor.  NO way was I going to shinney out on that beam to examine the winch.

I told the maintenance guy that the only solution was to get a crane in there, take the winch down, and send it to our plant in Tulsa.  That's what they did and a couple of weeks later, we got the winch and repaired it.

Friends from the Past

 

There are some friendships that seem less like choices than like the slow, patient work of time itself, laid down year after year until the memory of their beginning becomes almost indistinguishable from the memory of one’s own life. So it was when Jerry and Marlene McCain came to visit us this week, traveling home to Rutledge, Tennessee, after wandering through the vast reaches of Yellowstone, where the mountains and steaming earth must have seemed as old as the world itself.

Seeing them again carried us backward through more than half a century, to Tulsa in 1971, when our lives were simpler in their outward appearance, though no less full of hope than they are now. We lived side by side in adjoining mobile homes, close enough that one day’s conversation drifted almost naturally into the next. Louise and Marlene found in one another the easy companionship that asks for neither explanation nor effort, while Jerry and I discovered the same quiet understanding between us.

Those were years when the future was still unfolding before all of us. Jerry had only recently completed his service in the United States Navy and was studying at the Spartan School of Aviation, carrying with him the determination of a young man intent upon building a life with his own hands. After graduating in 1972, he and Marlene journeyed east to Virginia, where he spent more than forty years with Allied Chemical, remaining faithful to one company until retirement finally called him away from the work that had occupied so much of his life.

Our own path bent in another direction. Louise and I left Tulsa for Detroit before returning again the following year, as though life itself had decided that home was something we would have to leave before we could fully appreciate it. I eventually made my career at Tulsa Winch, working there until my retirement in 1998, measuring the passing years less by the calendar than by the familiar rhythm of work, family, and the friendships that somehow endured despite the miles and decades between us.

When friends such as Jerry and Marlene return, they do more than cross the threshold of a house. They bring with them the quiet company of all the years that have gone before—the people we once were, the hopes we carried, and the enduring grace that allows certain friendships to remain unchanged, even as everything else yields to time.

(AI Assisted)