It hasn't been a heavy lift for a Twin Cities-based rigging company to expand on Minnesota's Iron Range.

Sharrow Lifting Products recently moved into a 15,000 square-foot manufacturing and distribution facility in Hibbing.

Founded in 1952 and located in New Brighton since 2008, Sharrow Lifting Products manufactures and sells a full-line of slings, rigging and tie-down equipment, and other specialty lifting devices.

The company's expansion in Hibbing helps Sharrow Lifting Products serve northeastern Minnesota's mining industry along with loggers, roofers, manufacturers, and any company that moves heavy items.

Sharrow Lifting Products also provides a range of additional services including on-site OSHA required inspections, rigging gear inspections, lifting awareness training, proof testing, failure analysis, destructive testing and general rigging consulting.

Company officials say the expansion to Hibbing has been a success.

"There was a need to be fulfilled on the Iron Range," said Bob Downs, Sharrow Lifting Products president. "We believe we're the best at what we do. We're a rigging company and we're very knowledgeable and very good at what we do. To have a company on the Iron Range that is strictly focused on that is important."

Nearly all of the lifting products that Sharrow Lifting Products sells in the region are manufactured at its Hibbing facility, including crane cables and lifting slings. Five full-time workers are employed in Hibbing.

Sharrow Lifting Products plans to use its Hibbing manufacturing facility as a base to expand sales into North Dakota and Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

"We just felt there was a good opportunity there in Hibbing," said Downs. "We just felt that with the right people there, we could use mining as a basis and also help all the companies who serve the mining companies. The building we bought was set up to do what we needed to do. It all went pretty smooth. But we wouldn't have been able to do it without the help of the IRRRB and Security State Bank in Hibbing."

IRRRB supported the project with a bank participation loan.

Pictured above: Tyler Kintner manufactures a wire rope sling at Sharrow Lifting Products in Hibbing.