Omega Morgan News

The Columbia/Snake River System defines shortsea shipping, and promises much, much more. Lewiston, Idaho, is perhaps best known to tourists as the turnaround for a Columbia River cruise or the jumping-off point for a trip to Hell’s Canyon, North America’s deepest gorge. For anyone transporting cargo, however, it’s known as the port farthest inland of any on the West Coast – a whopping 465 miles inland from the mouth of the Columbia River. Located close to the border between Washington and Oregon…

Infrastructure renewal and engineering combine to provide an obscure, often under-appreciated, but nevertheless critically important aspect of marine operations. In the Pacific Northwest, for example, the waterway abundant geography provides engineering and specialized moving company Omega Morgan with all sorts of challenges that involve bridges spanning rivers. Whether crossing or moving these spans, West Coast-based Omega Morgan, faces particularly unique engineering challenges.

Omega Morgan, a 22-year-old specialized moving company, has its eyes on the aging bridges in the Pacific Northwest. After successfully employing the jack-and-slide method of efficiently moving bridge spans into place for two high-profile projects, the company sees more opportunities in Oregon and Washington. In January, Omega Morgan moved Portland’s 1,100-foot-long, 3,400-ton Sellwood Bridge across the Willamette River in a single day, in one piece and on an angle, drawing national media and big crowds. Then in Washington State on the night of Sept.

In early July, residents of communities on both sides of Lake Roosevelt in eastern Washington will celebrate the launch of a new ferry, the Sanpoil, replacing the Martha S. which has made 30 to 35 crossings every day for 65 years, linking the communities in Lincoln and Ferry Counties. Playing a role in the ferry project was its delivery to eastern Washington by Omega Morgan, a Northwest provider of complex lifting, rigging and transport solutions. The new ferry was built by Foss Maritime Co. in its Rainier, Ore., facility and consisted of nine pieces—the main hull and eight additional loads.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee officially kicked off the construction of M/V Samish, the state’s newest 144-car ferry, by making the first weld on the vessel at Vigor Industrial’s Seattle shipyard Friday. Earlier in the week US Fab, the Vigor company building the ferries, hit a major project milestone on the first vessel, the M/V Tokitae, when the company successfully transferred the 1110-ton superstructure onto the hull. Joined by state transportation officials, community leaders…

Omega Morgan, one of the West Coast’s leading heavy equipment transport companies, has named John McCalla CEO/President. McCalla comes to Omega Morgan from Warn Industries, also located in Portland. McCalla began his career as a project engineer at General Motors and then joined Warn Industries. He advanced through several positions at Warn and assumed the top executive leadership position in 2007. He has both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Michigan State University.