Spear Corp. swimming with big fish in Olympic Trials

Friday, July 1, 2016
Courtesy of Spear Corp. A lot more than meets the eye goes into making the U.S.A. Swimming Olympic Trials in Omaha run smoothly. Part of the crew that keeps things going is Roachdale-based Spear Corp. Among the crew providing mechanical support are Spear employees Logan McMurtry (on scissor lift below) and Dalton Spear.

You might not know it from the NBC broadcast, but every one of the swimmers at the U.S.A. Swimming Olympic Trials this week is benefiting from the expertise of a Putnam County company.

As the likes of Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky and Ryan Lochte head for yet another Olympic Games, remember that Roachdale-based Spear Corp. had at least a small part in getting them to Rio de Janeiro.

Company President Brian Spear and a small group of Spear employees have been in Omaha all week for the trials.

"We're responsible for all the mechanical systems," Spear told the Banner Graphic on Friday.

This includes piping, filtration and maintaining chemical balances of the competition pool inside CenturyLink Center arena, as well as a warm-up pool in the adjacent convention center.

It's much more than a weeklong job, however.

The process actually began a week before Memorial Day when construction started on the pools.

The build process took about 11 days for all the vendors involved, including eight Spear employees responsible for constructing the mechanical systems.

After the pools were filled, Spear's responsibilities moved on to getting equipment operational and getting the water to the right temperature and chemical balance.

"Spear Corp. has been on site the entire time in some form or fashion," Brian Spear said.

Competition began with the last-chance qualifier Omaha Cup on June 17 and 18, followed by the Olympic Trials, which began last Sunday and continues through this Sunday.

During competition, Spear's crew of four is responsible not only for the mechanical and chemical aspects but some after-hour cleaning each day.

"At night we get everything looking good," Spear said.

Even with a busy schedule, Spear still has a chance to follow the action in the pool.

"One of the things that's been kind of interesting this time is it seems like there's a lot of new people coming up and a lot of new faces for swimming," he said.

Once the last of the meet is over, Spear has a partial crew coming in Sunday evening to begin the process of draining the pools.

Then it will be a full crew beginning on Tuesday to have the entire system torn down by July 10.

Once the trials are over and things are torn down, the pools themselves will be on their way to new locations.

Although they are temporary, they can later be installed as permanent pools. One of the new pools is headed to North Dakota, with another bound for California.

Additionally, a third pool has been on site since the 2012 trials. Spear said it will be permanently installed in the Omaha area in the coming years.

This is not Spear's first experience with U.S.A. Swimming, having provided the same services at the 2012 Olympic Trials. That didn't make the company a shoo-in to get the job, though.

"It wasn't a given (that we'd be back)," Spear said. "We had to do some negotiations, but they knew we could get this done for them. It's a pretty big job.

"With that experience, they're pretty comfortable with us. "

Over the years, Spear Corp. has developed a good reputation in these world-class swimming events. Brian Spear cited experience at the 2004 World Short Course Championships at Conseco Fieldhouse, the 2012 Olympic Trials, the Invictus Games last month in Orlando and even work on the two-lane pool set up in New York City in 2013 when Diana Nyad participated in "Swim for Relief," doing a 48-hour continuous swim for victims of Hurricane Sandy.

High-profile jobs keep coming, and Brian Spear credits good employees.

"The crew that works at Spear Corp., I consider them world-class guys," he said. "They're some of the best in the country at what they do. I never have to worry about that."

Those good employees are a credit to the community, Spear said.

"We have a lot of employees that actually live in Putnam County. The majority are pretty close," Spear said. "There are definitely capable people in Putnam County that can do this stuff."

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