Marine & Forestry · Repair, Parts & New Units
Family-owned since 1974 and founded by rivermen. Heavy-duty diesel repair, deck equipment, forestry machines, and the parts that keep all of it working — any hour, night or day.
Service on the water
When a boat can’t leave her run, our mechanics go out to her — picked up at the shipyard dock by a vessel already underway, with the tools and the parts for the job in hand. The M/V Captain Harry, pictured in the middle of a service job, is our own boat, manned by SPECO crew and mechanics. Named for the founder, Harry Stanley Sr.
The Stanley vessels
Harry Sr. owned and operated four inland river boats, and he named them after the people he went home to. We still work the same water they did — fleet landings, docks, and shipyards from the Ship Channel out. If she can’t come to Channelview, we go to her.
What we do
Marine keeps barges, towboats, and equipment running. Forestry services and sells wood chippers, stump grinders, and the machines that work behind them. Both run out of the same building, staffed by the same heavy-duty diesel people. Pick a line below to see scope, turnaround, and what we keep in inventory.
Field service and in-shop rebuilds on main propulsion, auxiliaries, and deck machinery. Our people came off the boats — they know what a delay costs you at the fleet.
Packaged power and pumping units built, serviced, and load-tested for barge, towboat, and equipment duty — including the skids and enclosures they sit in.
Our own line of emergency shutdown valves — stainless or aluminum, four shutdown modes, and a companion fuel shutoff. Built and boxed in Channelview, and priced well under what the same protection usually costs.
Cast aluminum hatch hole covers with a notched inner ring that takes a standard 12-inch fan shroud — push air in, pull fumes out, or run two in tandem. No hose runs, no proprietary blower to buy.
Our forestry division works on the machines that clear land and process wood — wood chippers, stump grinders, and the equipment that runs alongside them. We service what you already own and sell newly manufactured units when it is time to replace it.
Fifty years of knowing which part actually fits — marine and forestry both. We stock the fast movers, source the obsolete ones, and ship the same day when the boat or the chipper is down. Parts go out nationwide — the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Snake, and anywhere else a customer runs.
By the numbers
Founded by a father and son off the inland waterways, and still run by the family that started it. Here’s our story
Our crew
Nobody here is far from the work. Call the shop and you get someone who can answer the question.
Co-founded SPECO in 1974 and has led it as president ever since. Learned diesel work riding his father’s boat, the M/V Alline, on deck and in the engine room, before there was a shop to run.
Oversees operations across the shop and the parts side, from fleet accounts to what goes out the door. Third generation in the business — Bonnie Boyett is his grandmother.
Coordinates service scheduling and customer jobs — the person who turns a call about a down boat into a crew and a lead time. Baxter’s little sister, and the namesake of the M/V Bonnie Sue.
Manages field service and shop work, including the after-hours callout rotation.
Get a quote
Send us the boat, the unit, and the symptom. We'll come back with a price, a lead time, and a straight answer about whether it's worth fixing.
Boat down after hours?