OSKALOOSA — It says it right on their business cards.

“We make it happen.”

And it was certainly the mindset Musco employees took with them when they went to help rebuild a Little League park in Boynton Beach, Fla.

Hurricane Wilma had left the sports complex in the beach town just north of Fort Lauderdale utterly devastated. And, unbeknownst to the town, it had been selected by ABC’s popular reality-show-with-a-heart, “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” for complete rebuilding, as only they do it.

The show contacted Musco about donating the permanent lighting, and Musco, being no stranger to this sort of project, suggested they bring their mobile units in to light the construction work as well. As a result, 300-million candlepower worth of light drove on site to illuminate construction.

Jeff McNulty, Musco’s director of field operations and Floyd Randolph, project manager, and Scott Larson, lighting technician, arrived on the scene on the morning of Saturday, April 4. They were met there by Musco Florida sales reps Tim Imhoff, Louis Gilbert and Karl Severance — if you’re a sales rep for Musco, installing the equipment you sell is just part of the job.

However, when TV cameras are involved, being on the scene doesn’t necessarily mean being on the job, and workers cooled their heels for the morning while the “Braveheart” shot of cast members that opens each show was shot.

By one o’clock, however, work was underway, and things were looking good until that evening — when it began to rain. But, as they say in “the biz,” the show must go on.

And go on it did. The project involved what Musco President Joe Crookham calls their “five easy pieces” — the concrete bases, poles, lights, wiring and electrical boxes. A total of four sets of lights were installed.

Of course, lighting was just one part of the project.

Torn fencing and twisted bleachers had to be removed, structural damage repaired and the baseball diamonds had to be completely resodded. In the rain Saturday night, as a new roof was being constructed on the ground next to it, the concession building’s damaged roof was lifted off — and then the new one lifted and set in place. But even under stressful conditions and a tight deadline, things ran relatively smoothly.

“On the job site, with all the trades there, everyone worked well together,” Crookham commented, and noted that ABC was great to work with also.

Perhaps it was fortunate that Musco had been called on this particular makeover, however. “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” as the title indicates, usually focuses on domestic dwellings.

“They didn’t know about putting things 60 or 70 feet in the air,” Crookham chuckled. This, of course, is where Musco feels right at home.

A new scoreboard had been purchased, and then the show’s producers realized they had no idea how they were going to mount it. This is where the “make it happen” part comes in.

“We helped them out with that,” McNulty said. “We just do whatever it takes to get the job done.” They also provided “aerial access” to mount brackets for closed-circuit cameras, and fabricated frames for giant plasma TV screens mounted above the fields. The big crunch, though, came at about 10 o’clock Tuesday night, the evening before the “reveal.”

“They had these signs that were supposed to go around the scoreboard. They came to us and said, ‘Can you help us with these?’ Well, that’s what we do, so we made a run to Home Depot,” McNulty remembered with a laugh. The next day the signs were in place.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Musco has gotten really good at installing lighting systems. The nearly dozen ball fields Musco has lit in the area hit by Wilma went through the hurricane with “not a fixture misaligned,” Crookham said.

The company is “project-oriented,” Crookham explained. While a few manufacturers, such as General Electric, might make comparable lighting, Musco is the only one who does the installation of lighting systems as well. They also monitor for repairs and provide maintenance for 25 years, and, in fact, have developed an insurance product for their customers.

And how about this for going that extra mile — when you install one of their systems, they will even turn the lights on and off for you. Every light system is linked to a central control system in Oskaloosa, which is programmed for on and off times, and can even sense when a bulb burns out. Tonight, something like 2,300 ball fields will be lit when, figuratively, a switch is thrown on First Avenue West in Oskaloosa. At the height of the season, that number will more than double. Industry figures indicate Musco has as 62 percent market share of the sports lighting business in the U.S.

A central control system was so important to their customers that, being unable to find an existing provider to meet their needs, Musco developed their own communications system, Control-Link.

“We learned so much putting Control-Link together, we decided we should make it available to the public. That’s where MCG came from,” Crookham explained. “The patchwork being done (by current providers) to get rural Iowa by isn’t adequate.”

He indicated that more humanitarian projects are in the offing. At the end of the day, it’s not just about selling lighting systems; it’s about building relationships.

Said Crookham, “Relationships get built through the work we do.”

Herald Staff Writer Sue Salisbury can be reached via email at salisburys@oskyherald.com