05.11.2021

Robert ‘Bob' Dieleman 1948 - 2021

We have received the sad news that Bob Dieleman, owner and chief executive of Jake’s Crane in Las Vegas, has died aged 73. He passed away Sunday October 31st having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the start of the year.
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Bob Dieleman

Bob was the youngest son of Jake’s Cranes founder Jake Dieleman, a larger than life character who had emigrated from Axel, in the Dutch province of Zealand, to Canada and then USA in 1921, travelling to Boulder City, Nevada, in 1931 to work on the construction of the Hoover dam. Jake's was established in 1946, with Bob taking over the business in 1981. His brothers Roger and Richard (Dick) later went on to set up their own company Dielco Crane Services.
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Bob Dieleman, always behind the camera, rarely in front of it

Jake's Cranes was a fan and loyal customer of American Hoist & Derrick truck and crawler cranes, buying its lattice boom truck cranes long after most crane companies. Under Bob’s direction Jake's became a major player in the Las Vegas tower crane market and ran a fleet of FMC Link-Belt tower gantries - big diesel hydraulic luffing jib cranes - which he later sold to Cornell in New Jersey after it acquired the manufacturing rights from Link-Belt.
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A Link-Belt tower gantry on the Hoover Dam

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Another Jake's Link-Belt tower gantry on the Panama Canal

Dieleman was above all an engineer and inventor and used his experience of moving big cranes and other loads on the road. He registered numerous patents over the years, including a 1990 patent listing him as joint inventor of a system to evenly distribute vehicle weights of up to 450 tonnes. In the late 1980s he teamed up with ex-American Crane & Hoist engineer Jim McGie to develop a light weight, roadable 400 ton/360 tonne lattice truck crane under the Transworld Crane banner. The Transworld SL400 could run street legal in many states, relatively intact. While relatively few were ever built, one went to Hawaii’s Onipa’a Crane & Rigging in 1991, while others went into the Jake's fleet, and a new one was displayed at Conexpo 2008.
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The SL 400 prototype on a max capacity test

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The production SL 400 on the road

Sadly, Jake's ceased crane operations in 2010, a year after it had suffered a $1 million hit from the failure of Lewis Equipment of which it was a major creditor. The decision did allow Dieleman to focus on the manufacturing operations and engineering however. He continued to register patents, posting one as recently as 2015, for a steering system for mega transporters. That same year his daughter Crystal took over the manufacturing operations, forming a new company, under the Transworld Manufacturing banner, developing and manufacturing trailing boom dollies, spreader beams and other fabrications. The business has gone from strength to strength and operates from the old Jake's facility in Dean Martin Drive, just off the strip in Las Vegas.
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The SL 400 installing a Link Belt Tower Gantry for the Hoover Dam bypass bridge

A family obituary sums up the unique nature of the man:
Bob will best be remembered as a legendary crane man with a penchant for suspenders (braces). He saw the sensibility in his trademark uniform early on as they allowed him to “work with both hands” on a jobsite more securely than with a tool belt alone.

Bob was an innovator and inventor, always interested in the latest technology. With a keen engineering mind, he organised, funded and spearheaded multiple significant and forward thinking heavy lift and heavy haul projects. Most notable are the JXS, a Cal-Trans compliant heavy haul trailer with a 700,000lb (317 tonnes) hauling capacity that won 13 patents and the SC&RA project of the year in 1990. And the SL 400, nicknamed the ‘Crystal May,’ a street legal 400 ton lattice boom truck crane. The ground breaking crane doubled the capacity of road worthy cranes at the time. Always looking towards the future, he pioneered the development of a hydrogas suspension system in the 1990’s, a technology more common in Europe and “in its infancy” in America, as he would say. Although he had retired, his last work involved three patents on a manufacturer friendly Schnabel transport system, with pivoting goosenecks for rapid deployment.
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A Transworld JXS heavy haul rig

Bob was a man of the world, always travelling to exotic places for some crane or another, making so many friends along the way. He would fondly recall the treacherous conditions from his years spent operating at the Trans Alaska pipeline. He shared stories of hard work growing up at, and later running, Jake’s Crane & Rigging from round tripping San Francisco twice in a day, to late night tower crane jumps at any of the Las Vegas strip resorts.

bauma regular
During his working years, he never missed a bauma tradeshow, including the year the Icelandic volcano eruption kept most Americans at home he found his way to Munich. Bob was raised to work hard and ‘burn rubber’. If you ever had the luxury of driving somewhere with him, it may have left you pale and white knuckled, but you always arrived quickly, and in one piece.

So many people have a story to share about him that include a crane, a German beer, or a kind gesture. His generosity and pure heart attracted people like a magnet, he would go out of his way to help people and “nice try” to anyone who attempted to pick up the tab when you were out with him. Bob was a compassionate pacifist, always there to help, but quick to remind you to be the bigger person. He believed enlightenment was the ultimate pursuit, he meditated, practiced qi gong, and devoured books about spirituality.

One of four children, he was born in Boulder City and would reminisce about riding horses through the desert with his sister. He leaves behind, wife Kay, children Crystal and Jacob and a grandson as well as his sister Kathie and brother Dick.

A celebration of his life will be held at Red Rock Country Club in Las Vegas on November 19th from 13:00 to 16:00. In lieu of flowers, the family says: "please do as Bob would have done and perform a random act of kindness".