THE INTERVIEW | JIM GOODALL “I had a passion for the job I was doing but the
money was not there. I wanted to be able to travel more, for example, so I felt I needed to make more money. Back then, colour-changing lights were becoming popular and in Chicago, where I live, a lot of buildings were adding colour lighting to their roofs. Companies that were selling those lights came to me to set them up, so I ended up programming eight lights instead of maybe the 1,000 we were used to programming when putting up at an event, but they were paying five times the rate.” After five years at KSA Lighting and Controls, a leading Chicago-based manufacturer’s representative agency, which specialises in lighting, controls, energy solutions and roadway infrastructure, the call from pewag came, and Goodall took his first steps in the lifting industry. “From KSA to pewag was a big step. The
recruiter said that if I sold one kind of widget I could sell another, and it didn’t really matter what the widget was. The company wanted some manufacturers’ rep experience and some understanding of rigging, which is why the recruiter contacted me. We had done a lot with manufacturers’ reps, and pewag needed a large sales team to sell more into the US. “When I first joined, I saw the team as a fixer-
upper. There was a lot of work to do, as the sales force for lifting solutions had not been growing the business as fast as the headquarters in Austria had wanted it to. So, when I came on board I saw the challenge to build the company’s small percentage of market share.”
Culture shock When Goodall arrived in early 2022, he found an outpost of a company steeped in history and tradition that needed to update its processes and procedures in order to compete in the US market. Although the company had already had a presence in the US for 50 years, it had only focused on lifting solutions for 15 years. Before that, it had largely concentrated its efforts on snowchains and tyre protection chains across a range of industries.
In little over four years, Goodall has boosted pewag’s revenue by 30%. “At first, I just wanted a really cool job then
later I was thinking it would be good to get into working with that kind of technology as it evolved. For a while, I wanted to train to be an engineer, but I realised that wasn’t for me and I didn’t want to be in that environment for years. Entertainment rigging was a very makeshift process at first, but that industry developed a lot from the time I got into it in 1995 when I was in high school. Back then we were in rock climbing harnesses 150 feet up in an arena roof with nothing but concrete beneath us. As I got older, I realised I didn’t need to be doing that every day.” What followed was a degree in public and corporate communications from Purdue University, though it was not long before Goodall
26 Summer 2026 |
ochmagazine.com
was back in the entertainment lighting world working for production companies putting on corporate events. With a cleaner and classier workday than being backstage at the roadhouse, the job still had the excitement of being involved in a dynamic industry.
Indeed, Goodall’s passion for that industry saw him take up a position as director of operations for RGB Lights, later becoming its vice president. The company specialises in the design, manufacturing and supply of modular, dynamic LED lighting systems. The move allowed him to become more involved in architectural lighting solutions, again thanks to spotting an opportunity and being willing to take a risk.
Lifting solutions is still only 15% of pewag’s overall business, but the company has managed to greatly expand its revenue from hook-to- load crane solutions in the US, largely thanks to Goodall’s drive to spot inefficiencies, take processes back to basics and challenge the kind of habitual behaviour that allows inefficient processes to become ingrained as normal patterns of work. In a little over four years, Goodall has managed
to boost topline revenue up by 30% and that future is still growing. In part, that has come from understanding the benefits and the challenges that come with a business model in which the parent company treats all of its overseas divisions as small, autonomous local businesses. This gives each division significant freedom to determine how it is run.
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