IWD: Melissa King Ruths, VP marketing & product, The Crosby Group

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Here Melissa King Ruths, VP Marketing and Product, The Crosby Group, describes how she started her career. She has worked at The Crosby Group since January 2020.

“After graduating with my Chemical Engineering degree, I wanted to work in industries where high-quality products and technology served to solve problems and improve environments. I chose roles with business and portfolio strategy scope that would give me a broad real-world education, and I embraced opportunities to work in different geographies, including a five-year assignment in Asia Pacific. I was attracted to the rigging and lifting industry, and The Crosby Group specifically, as I immediately saw the passion for utilizing innovative products and best practices to enable safe working conditions everywhere from the construction of the world’s tallest buildings, to floating offshore wind platforms, to rocket launch sites,” she said. 

“I have received the most personal satisfaction from projects and teams that have ultimately benefited communities. One such program that I am very proud of is our partnership with Bridges to Prosperity, a non-profit organization that envisions a world where poverty caused by rural isolation no longer exists. Bridges to Prosperity has found that where bridges are built, there is a 60%+ increase of women entering the labor market.  Plus, these bridges enable children and teachers to attend school year-round. When a community has safe access to education, 12% more children enroll in school. We at The Crosby Group are so proud to contribute to these results through the supply of critical products such as clips, turnbuckles, snatch blocks and wire rope tension meters, as well as training and expertise to the teams constructing the bridges to ensure best safety practices for lifting and rigging.  I am thrilled that we are also sending a team of employees from The Crosby Group to Uganda to participate in the building of a bridge.

“Throughout my career, I have found that a significant challenge and subsequent opportunity is building collaborative, highly impactful teams. As The Crosby Group grows, we are continually expanding our organization with passionate, talented individuals who can grow in their careers and ambitions with us. One step we took last year to further develop our team members was to launch Uplift, a women’s network with The Crosby Group. With a membership base spread over 10+ sites globally, the mission of our group is to strengthen our female network and community while inspiring women to join our industry.  I have been so impressed and motivated by the women I have gotten to know through the network as they have shared their stories and insights. And it has been very rewarding to see individuals from different functions and parts of the world collaborate around best practices and advance their personal development.

“One trend I see in our industry today is the accelerated adoption of digital technology in everyday rigging, lifting, and securement practices. Our end-users are embracing load monitoring and crane camera systems as they provide immediate information to enhance site safety and productivity. Innovation is also enabling common practices such as the use of tag-lines to be eliminated which further reduces risks of lifting operations. Because of these trends, we are keenly focused on building a strong offering of enhanced lifting technologies, including notable brands such as Crosby Straightpoint, Crosby BlokCam, Crosby Airpes and Verton. We also see partnerships as a critical enablement of technology and are proud to partner with Versatile, an emerging construction technology provider whose data-collection platform, CraneView, measures thousands of data points to deliver insights specific to each jobsite for smarter and faster decision making.  

“Now with pandemic guidelines loosening a bit and travel opening, I’m most looking forward to spending more time with our end-users and channel partners – getting to know their needs better, so we can continue to add value to their businesses through our product and marketing roadmaps. And also getting to meet more of The Crosby Group team members face to face.”