Courtesy photos
The heavy machinery and equipment that’s housed inside the many industrial buildings and data centers and at Tahoe Reno Industrial Center was likely set and placed by MEI Industrial Solutions.
MEI entered the Northern Nevada market in 2017 to work on the Tesla Gigafactory. The company had just a handful of employees based out of a jobsite trailer and a conex shipping container used for storage.
Since then, MEI Industrial Solutions Reno office has grown to more than 100 full-time employees and 50 contract employees. In 2021, MEI leased approximately 50,000 square feet on Alexandria Drive off Waltham Way, and in May it leased an additional 161,200-square-foot facility on Denmark Drive to better serve its clients at TRI Center.
Fred White, general manager of MEI Industrial Solutions of Reno, told NNBW that the continued growth of companies building new facilities and data centers at Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, along with the goal of being able to better serve those customers, spurred the company’s most recent facilities expansion.
“Our customers were asking for solutions,” White said, “Our goal is to offer end-to-end solutions from the beginning of their projects to getting them up and running, and supporting and sustaining their industries to keep them operating.
“We don’t discriminate based on size, but we are really good at moving big, heavy things,” he added. “Whether it's a generator, transformer or other electric equipment, or smaller machinery used in automation, we can move and install anything our customers need. Our specialty is moving heavy things, and we are really good at it.”
In addition to rigging and moving/installing heavy equipment and machinery, MEI Industrial Solutions also performs millwrighting (installation, leveling and setup of heavy machinery), industrial storage, custom crating and export packaging, and specialized transportation. The company provides ongoing maintenance services throughout the lifecycle of equipment and machinery, such as installing new gears or motors, and also decommissioning and removing outdated end-of-life cycle machinery and installing new, upgraded equipment.
In 2021, MEI acquired Reno Custom Crating to add that business line to its capabilities and offerings. In addition to nearly 200,000 square feet of indoor storage, MEI Industrial Solutions has just north of three acres of outdoor storage between its two Northern Nevada facilities.
MEI Industrial Solutions was founded in Albany, Ore., The company operates 65 facilities in 17 states and boasts 5.2 million square feet of indoor storage and 145 acres of outdoor storage. The company employs just shy of 1,800 people. White said the Reno office is a bit unique in that it’s basically a stone’s throw from the biggest industrial park in the world and provides the company with countless new and ongoing business opportunities.
“It gives us the opportunity to make our services available to all those growing industries,” he said. “We continue to grow, and that’s a very good problem.
“We don’t just move things, we move industries forward and allow them to stay on the cutting edge of their field,” White added. “We support companies by keeping their facilities as up-to-date as possible.”
MEI – move, engineer, and innovate – has grown into one of the largest rigging companies in Northern Nevada with the broadest range of industrial business solutions. That growth requires a talented employee base since rigging is a highly specialized field that requires extensive training and certifications. In order to grow its workforce and upskill employees, MEI Industrial Solutions runs its own rigging training program from its Dallas office.
Five MEI Industrial Solutions employees from Northern Nevada have completed the rigging apprenticeship program, White said.
“We are unique in our industry in that we have developed our own rigging apprenticeship program,” White said. “Rigging is a very lucrative career and it gives you the opportunity to travel all over the world.
“We developed a training system where we can bring in someone who has zero rigging experience, put them through our year-long rigging apprenticeship academy, and they can get real-world experience along with classroom and hands-on training.”
The company’s national footprint allows it to service customers from one end of the country to the other, so customers only need a single point of contact to get loads transported, placed, set up, maintained, and decommissioned when the time comes for replacement or an upgrade.
MEI often picks up specialized equipment, crates it onsite, and then transports it to Reno or another of its facilities while customers determine the logistics of the machinery and where exactly it will be installed in their facilities.
“We will hold equipment before it gets installed, and we will also hold it before it gets shipped out,” White said.
The industrial team of Joel Fountain, Nick Knecht and Baker Krukow of Dickson Commercial Group Industrial, along with David Cartwright of Armour Realty, assisted MEI with lease negotiations on its new facility at TRI Center.