INTERVIEW
Keeping pace with change
SteelGlide has a history spanning more than 50 years in its niche of maintenance solutions for flanged wheel applications, but the latest generation to take over its leadership role has plans to expand. OCH talks to its president, Mark Davis, about his unlikely path to his current position, and how he plans to balance the company’s heritage with an appetite for innovation.
hough we lack concrete survey data, it is a fair bet to say that few leaders in the crane and hoist industry grew up wanting to be poets. As kids, some may have dreamt of being astronauts, pilots, inventors or even CEOs of a big corporation. But for Mark Davis, who took on the role of president at SteelGlide in early 2024, it was the lure of literature that captured his imagination. Not only did he want to write, but he started out trying to make that his career, though the life of an artist soon revealed the kind of challenges that would easily make a person reconsider their options. “I used to read a lot of poetry and fiction, and it sparked my interest in writing for a living,” he says. “I attended an arts high school to pursue that spark, and it was there that I learned I would rather work with technology. “I really thought I was going to be a writer, and I learnt a lot about communication and language at art school, but I saw the journalists starving, and the poets killing themselves, so I came to the conclusion that I didn’t like my team. Instead, I fell in love with computers and programming, which is very poetic and creative in its own way. It is an art, and the end result achieves something. Software changes the environment.” So began a career that seemed to be leading in the opposite direction to a career in the company
T
his father, Charles Davis, had spent his life building. Charles, who founded the company – then known as Trans-Lube – in 1975, was a man who knew the value of both work and family. The sixth of seven children, he was born to a family of sharecroppers, and hard work was mandatory. Farming for food and picking cotton for spare cash is no easy life. He married his high school sweetheart, and both worked together to pay his way through engineering school, driven by the belief that what you want is out there, but it won’t come to you – you have to go get it. His was a dream built on a relentless work ethic and a focus on quality and customer satisfaction that endures to this day. When the company celebrated its 50th anniversary, the founder’s vision was celebrated by rebranding Trans-Lube as SteelGlide, with a view to positioning the company for its next chapter. The company, which remains family-owned,
provides preventative maintenance solutions for flanged wheel applications, including cranes, trains and even superdomes. It continues to excel in its niche, driven by the promise Mark Davis made shortly before his father’s death little more than one year ago. “My dad, before he passed away, gave me two charges – take care of my customers and grow this business,” he explains.
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