From where crane operator Anthony Villalobos sits high above the city most days, he can see Denverites going about their business. People set up tents next to the South Platte River. Joggers push strollers, and endless cars pass.
Villalobos notices hundreds of people each day, but they rarely look up, much less see him. They’re too busy staring into their phones. So he meets them there, on TikTok, where he shares popular tidbits about crane mechanics, keeping loads stable in high winds and sometimes just taking in the view.
“If I do a skyline video, I try to throw something motivational — a voiceover or something — on there,” he explained. “I feel like I've got a lot to say.”
If you’ve ever wondered why so many cranes sport American flags (they’re DIY wind monitors), how cranes stay upright in high winds (they’re buried deep in the ground), or where crane operators actually are (often on a platform at the top of the crane), Villalobos has an answer.
The most common question he gets: Where do you relieve yourself when you’re on top of a crane? The answer: In a bottle.
Sometimes he’s poignant. Sometimes he’s funny. Sometimes he’s technical. He’s always giving Denverites a perspective on our city few others have.
Before operating cranes, Villalobos, who goes by Colorado Crane Guy online, served as a trainer in the Army for 12 years.
Afterwards, he worked in the oil fields for roughly a decade, running heavy equipment and moving coil tubing. He trained to be a crane operator and used his new-found skill to move drilling rigs. The work paid well, and there was never a shortage of hours.
“The hours were just insane,” he said. “There's a week I got paid for every hour in the week, because I couldn't leave the location. I didn't have to stay awake for all those hours, but they needed somebody on site.”
During the pandemic, work in the oil fields came to a halt, and Villalobos moved back home to Colorado Springs.
There, he contacted a construction superintendent he knew, who said his company needed crane operators. So he went to San Antonio, Texas and trained with the National Crane Certification and Inspection Co.
To receive his license, Villalobos had to complete a test with dozens of questions. Then came his practical skills test, including a challenging Z-pattern maneuver with the crane that sent many aspiring crane operators packing.
He passed his tests and then got a job with Stafford, who helped him transition from mobile cranes to tower cranes, the sort that are built on a job site and stay fixed in place until construction has been completed.
Villalobos’ first Denver project was with Shaw Construction, working on two buildings on either side of 6th Ave. and Lipan St.
“Those buildings are mine in a sense,” he said. “I got most of that project done before they needed me to move over to the Opus job at California and Colfax.”
Now, he’s working on a job at I-25 and Colfax, across the street from Mile High Stadium, for Mortenson Construction. He likes the spot because it’s somewhat removed from Downtown. The site gives him better views of the city’s skyline.
Villalobos spends all day in the sky. He makes videos. He eats a lunch of lean protein and veggies to lose weight ahead of his wedding. He reads books and listens to true crime and politics podcasts. And he works on his faith, looking out over the city.
“I like it at night when Meow Wolf has got their lights on and the Downtown skyline’s lit up,” he said.
Villalobos is slated to finish operating the crane at the current site in late summer, early fall, and he’s unsure where his next project will be.
Every morning it takes Villalobos an hour to drive from Colorado Springs to Denver, and his commute home can take twice that. He sometimes thinks of moving up to Denver, to be closer to the developments, but he prefers staying in Colorado Springs, where his father lives and his fiance has a freshman in high school.
He’d love to get a job in the Denver Tech Center, much closer to his home.
Better yet, he hopes that Colorado Springs will be moving forward with a controversial high-rise tower that would transform its downtown skyline. He’d love to be the operator of that crane — if the community doesn’t block the building.
“Colorado Springs is huge,” he said. “And El Paso County is going to probably reach a million people if it hasn't already. So no, it's not Denver, but you can't keep spreading out in my opinion. You kind of have to start going up to some degree.”
The job pays well, even if it comes with some risks — more to other people than himself.
“You get guys on the ground complaining about the crane operators making a lot of money,” he said. “But I tried to tell them, basically, that I don't get paid a lot because my job is hard. I get paid a lot because, if I make a mistake, I could kill you.”
Happily, he’s never had an accident in his career, though he studies them as they occur around the world to learn from the mistakes and accidents of others.
“The wind is the biggest concern,” he explained. “We pick up walls all the time. And even if it's three or 4,000 pounds, it will act like a kite. It will start to spin up first. And if the wind is really bad, it will actually start to lift up to where you're losing control of the load. And once it's horizontal, it's very difficult to regain control.”
But wind isn’t the only danger. Lightning can cause havoc, too.
The crane serves as a massive lightning rod, and it’s the people on the ground, near the crane, who face the gravest danger.
His crane’s been struck by lightning before when he was on the platform, but because it was buried in 35 feet of concrete, it was well grounded.
“I didn’t even feel it,” he said. “It was really loud. We had lightning all around us. But afterwards, I didn’t feel it. It struck the top very most light, the aviation light at the top. And I heard the lightning and I seen little pieces of the light falling down.”
The guys on the ground called him on the radio.
“Tony, Tony are you okay?” they said.
“Yeah.”
“You just got struck by lightning.”
“Oh, that’s what that was?”
The risks, from climbing the crane tower every morning to braving the weather, are worth the pride Villalobos feels running the tower crane and creating new buildings.
“We change the skyline,” he says.
The bigger the building, the bigger the mark. He’s gone up to 370 feet, or roughly 14 stories, but he’d like to go far higher.
When he looks at a building he’s helping build, he sees his legacy.
“This building will be here long after I’m dead,” he said. “My grandkids will say, ‘Grandpa put that building up.’”
