On March 12th, in the hour before sunrise, a small, diverse group gathered on a 2-acre plot of land on the outskirts of Billings, MT. Predawn yawns were stifled by the steam rising from coffee cups in subfreezing weather. The sun edged above the horizon as the gates to the enclosure swung open. A white pickup truck pulling a small flat-bed trailer jostled into the space and came to a sliding halt. Coffee cups were hurriedly replaced with work gloves, and the small entourage descended on the trailer's cargo. The hook from a crane boom was carefully threaded through a loop atop the cargo on the trailer. A hand signal from the foreman circled to the heavens, and the crane operator deliberately raised the load, revealing a foreign, yellow shape. The yellow device levitated above the small group and as it slowly danced in the cool morning breeze, it twirled around to reveal a Wood's Powr-Grip MR1611LDC.

The enclosure is the new bear habitat at Zoo Montana. Wood's Powr-Grip supplied its MR1611LDC to ZNG Glass to facilitate the installation of the 1-1/2 inch thick panes of safety glass in the public viewing area of the bear enclosure. All in all, eight panes of glass were installed. The job began around 8 am and was completed more rapidly than expected. By 2 pm, all the glass was in place.

Each piece of glass weighed in at around 700 lbs [318 kg]. The glass was laying on edge in wooden crates. The lifter was attached to each pane and the glass was removed from its protective container. The installers would then place a Wood's Powr-Grip hand-held vacuum cup on the glass. With the lifter attached and the load raised out of the container, they would use the lifter to manually rotate the glass into a vertical orientation. Three men would then escort the glass to the enclosure as the boom operator swung it into position. Waiting on the other side of the window frame were two more men with Wood's Powr-Grip hand cups. Because of the overhanging roof on the enclosure, it was a cautious but well orchestrated effort to place each pane in place. As the bottom of the pane was angled into place, the hand cup on the outside was removed and rushed to the inside to join the other two men with hand cups. All three attached their cups from the inside and pulled the glass into its upright position. The lifter was released and swung around for the next load as the ZNG employees framed the glass and attached it into place.

The new bear exhibit was constructed with a generous donation of $1 million from Norilsk Nickel, the Russian company that owns Stillwater Mining Co. The Zoo anticipates the arrival of their first bear, an Alaska brown named Bruno, sometime around the end of April. With a little bit of luck, and a lot of support, the Zoo is hoping to add two more bruins to the enclosure in the future.

Wood's Powr-Grip was pleased to have been part of this project.  Hopefully, the bear exhibit will thrill visitors to the Zoo for years to come..

David Peters has more than 30 years experience in sales and marketing. He is currently the marketing associate for Wood’s Powr-Grip Co., Inc., responsible for interactive marketing, tracking, market research and new product introduction.