THE INTERVIEW | RICHARD WARRINER
For over 40 years, Warriner has focused his efforts on supplying, maintaining and expanding specialised electrification systems for industrial applications, including cranes and hoists.
electromechanical systems and components for cranes and industrial applications for industries such as steel, mining, automotive and pulp and paper. By 2021, he was working as director of business development at Rack N Roll Marine, bringing to bear more than 40 years’ experience on its material handling and warehouse storage solutions. Then came the call from Spanguard. All of this may seem like a fluid and well-
planned career progression, but it was anything but. As Warriner says, he never had a plan, and sometimes life takes unexpected turns that shape everything from a career to a home life. “Not all the steps in my career were vertical ups. Sometimes you need to take a step back and take stock. When my wife got ill with cancer, for example, I decided to leave Ace. That was the hardest experience of my life, and after she died, I came back into the industry in a new role with Foley. “Dale Foley had kept in touch and said if I
wanted to come back there would always be an opportunity. When I did return, it was with a new perspective on what is important in life. Different companies have a different outlook on things.” For Warriner, this is an industry that will always be about people rather than just numbers. “I see big international companies coming
into the US wanting to be the largest in the world, but I look at things differently. They look at the numbers, but I look a bit deeper into what is
behind the numbers. When you don’t do that, something is lost along the way.”
Recognising the value of experience During his time with the Spanguard, Warriner has been a key driving force in its expansion, including the acquisition of the former U-S Safety Trolley range from Legrand Corporation. In his current role, he works with industrial operations, distributors and technical teams to identify their power delivery challenges and help them to implement solutions that improve reliability, safety and long-term system performance. Above all, Warriner is a font of knowledge about modernisation planning, infrastructure upgrades, product selection and strategic support for complex material handling environments. This is in no small part because he has understood the value of people and has always taken a keen interest in understanding what makes them tick. “Above all, my career has been defined by personal relationships. I have had many opportunities to work with and learn from people, though I have always made sure that when I make a mistake it is my mistake, not theirs. I’ve met so many people along the way and while some lessons have been forced on me, many have come just from getting to know people. “Yes, I am always looking for opportunities, but I have not necessarily been planning for it.
Learning to plan and organise my thoughts has been a really important skill. For example, Charlie Kozak at American Monorail taught me a lot in the early days about how to review opportunities and how to understand what is valid and what is not.” With such a varied and storied past in this industry, Warriner is well-placed to take a view on how it will develop in the future. Understandably, he sees technology as a major driver with automation playing an ever-greater role in how lifts are managed. “Automation is becoming more and more
involved, and technology in recent years has come along to enable you to automate an overhead crane with a load hanging on a hook, managing how the load behaves as it accelerates and decelerates. You can take out the human factor and understand how to use equipment in the most efficient way. There have been some tremendous advances in efficiency, and there will be more. There is a lot of technology that has made lifting much safer.” The industry to which Warriner has given his working life has given him a lot in return, and he remains excited about its future. It has allowed him to learn not only about the lifting industry itself, but also the many different sectors that rely on crane technology as a core part of their operations. Just recently, he has been looking at implementations of Spanguard’s Four-Bar conductor bar system that has been designed
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