Meet Barry McGrane, Loader Cranes Light & Medium

Career | 7 july 2020 9:10 AM
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“Together we all have the same ambition which is to develop our people and grow the business, but most of all, there is no better feeling than hearing from Customers how our products and services suit their business needs.” 

Meet Barry McGrane Hiab’s Senior Vice President, Loader Cranes Light & Medium. Barry has been in the company for 20 years and has worked in a variety of positions during these years. His career story at Hiab started in December 2001 when he joined the team in Engineering and R&D in the Truck Mounted Forklift business line in Dundalk, Ireland: “From there I moved into sales having responsibility for TMFL global sales and then in May of last year I got presented the opportunity to run the US business which was a great step for me, both professionally and personally.” 

Barry has a history with Hiab’s business line Moffett from when he was younger and Moffett was a small family owned business. The transition to his role at Hiab was natural as he already knew most of the team in Dundalk and the products: “At that time, the Moffett business was acquired by Cargotec. The new owner and leadership provided a great future for the business, so it was an easy decision to become part of that.”

It can be said that over the years Barry has learned a lot of Hiab’s business and products but he still thinks that the most important part of his job is to spend time with customers and employees as there’s always something to learn and improve on. Overall, Barry himself sees his role as to support the team to provide the best customer service that they can and he thinks the best way to support is to get involved as much as possible: “I try to spend time with customers when I can, as they give me first hand knowledge on what we do well and more importantly what we can improve on. My current role also entails quite an amount of travel, and I take as much time as I can to sit with all levels of the business to hear what our front line employees need from me to help make their jobs easier.” 

Barry thinks that it is essential in this business to have a passion for our products and people. He believes that having a happy and an engaged workforce will in itself provide first class customer satisfaction: “You need to invest time and get into the details of both of these aspects and combine this with drive and ambition to make the business successful.” This is something that works well in Barry’s current team.