IN THE DOCK
A VERY FOND FAREWELL
Lars Meurling is retiring after almost 20 years at Bromma, the Swedish manufacturer of spreaders. He shares some career highlights, including talking shop with Swedish royalty.
ars started with Bromma in 2007 when the company was still owned by Cargotec Sweden, initially on a consultancy basis. “I came in on a contract for a few months,” he says. “During that period, I found that I really liked Bromma, and fortunately for me they also liked what I was doing. “It was a great time to join the industry as it was right at the peak of the containerisation boom,” he says. He shares data showing that container shipping grew by an average of 12% per year between 2003 and 2007, numbers the industry would love to repeat now – his data from 2008 to 2024 shows average growth at under 4% per annum. The financial crash came the year after he joined. “It hit our industry quite hard, as you’d expect,” he says. “We went from high growth to negative throughput on container shipping.” However, as the inventor of the telescopic
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spreader, and an established spreader supplier, Bromma was not hit too badly. “This is a long-term project business,” he adds. “When someone starts an expansion such as building a new terminal, the plans are measured in five or even 10 years, not just one year. So, projects that were already progressing just continued, very few were stopped and those were in the extremely early stages.”
Varied roles His first role was as aftersales manager, a significant change as his previous positions had all been in very different segments. “I started out as a computer system administrator and my first two jobs were in nuclear power and biotech,” he says. “The shift to the ports industry was massive and a lot of my new colleagues wondered how I had ended up here.” Cargotec quickly recognised his capabilities
and promoted him to Bromma’s managing director for Europe. Further promotions quickly
vi | July/August 2026 |
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future legislation, policy and standards. “Today there are more than 130 member companies, and the meetings can typically have 150 to 200 people attending,” he adds. “It has been wonderful to see that growth over the years.” He was heavily involved, starting as vice-chair of the safety committee. When it merged with the environment committee, he was elected chairman, a role he held for almost a decade. “PEMA has certainly grown in importance and influence,” he says. “It has really engaged with other industry bodies as well, such as ICHCA (International Cargo Handling Coordination Association). PEMA is now regularly consulted on standards and other major topics.”
Lars Meurling, now retired from his role at Bromma of VP for EMEA and marketing.
followed, before he became VP for the EMEA region and for marketing in 2013, a role he held until retirement in June. “I’d ended up on the software side as a sales
director, so I had a great deal of sales leadership experience before Bromma,” he adds.
PEMA prominence One of his favourite elements of his career has been his involvement with the Port Equipment Manufacturers Association (PEMA), which began in 2008. “Back then the association was quite small, it was still fairly new,” he says. “I remember going to meetings and we could easily fit around one table; there were only about 10 of us at meetings and 20 member companies in total.” PEMA has since grown into a powerful global voice for the industry, plus a platform to influence
Career highlights His roles with Bromma and PEMA brought Meurling into contact with industry figures from around the world, many of whom became his friends. And he even dined with royalty. In 2010, he was part of a Business Sweden delegation to Cartagena in Colombia. “I was invited for lunch and ended up sitting opposite the crown princess of Sweden,” he says. “I was impressed with the princess before, but after our meeting my admiration of her became even stronger.” The heir apparent to the Swedish throne, Princess Victoria proved highly knowledgeable on port equipment. “We had a really in-depth conversation; it was clear she had really done her homework and studied terminal operations. Talking this way with the crown princess was as fun as it gets in a work environment. I have a lot of fond memories of Cartagena, and it remains my favourite port city to visit.” As VP of marketing, sometimes his role also
involved keeping Bromma out of the press – especially when the media had got the wrong end of the story. “Dealing with the press has been important in terms of getting our message out there,” he says.
He made a habit of asking journalists to share their draft articles before publication, and in one
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