ALTAMONT — When Bob DeStefano was 16, the carnival came to town — his hometown, Levittown, on Long Island. He applied for a job there and, after some training, was assigned to operate the swing ride. As he went to buckle in two teenaged girls, one waved him off.

“I didn’t know who she was,” said DeStefano. “She said, ‘I can do it myself.’”

He remarked on this encounter to the foreman, who responded, “Don’t mess with her; that’s the boss’s daughter.”

DeStefano continued working at the carnival, called Carnival Amusements, and seven years later, married Kathy, the daughter of the carnival’s owner. Her father sold his company, and so the newly wedded couple started their own — Dreamland Amusements.

“We started from the ground floor,” said DeStefano. “We built what we had from zero; from our wedding envelopes, till now.”

The company, which began in 2003, travels from New Hampshire to Florida, and mainly rents out an entire midway’s worth of rides, games, and food stations to fairs along the coast. But DeStefano said the company will also rent a single ride to an event like a concert, and is especially proud of renting rides at this year’s Congressional Picnic in Washington, D.C., and to the Country Music Awards in Nashville Tennessee.

This is the third year that the company is setting up midway attractions at the Altamont Fair.

“The fair has a wonderful reputation in our industry,” said DeStefano. “It’s a solid fair as far as attendance goes, as far as management goes.”

The rides arrive Monday, before the fair begins.

As a former ride operator, DeStefano said that newer operators are typically started on the “kiddie rides,” unless they have prior experience.

“It’s just like school, you start off in kindergarten and first grade,” he said.

A ride foreman will show a new operator how to set up and control the ride, including proper safety standards and any safety releases should there be a loss of power, which is generally seen with “thrill rides,” he said.

The time it takes to set up a ride depends on its complexity. A third-party consultant may inspect rides, and a state inspector checks every ride every time it is set up.

One of the more popular rides with teenages, said DeStefano, is known as the Himalaya, which has 22 cars that ride around an arch. Thrill seekers are often drawn to the Zipper, he said, which has 12 caged cars that spin around as they travel up about 56 feet in the air.

DeStefano prefers not to ride these.

“I’m a merry-go-round guy,” he said.