24.08.2004

Robert F. Gleason 1923-2004

We have received the sad news that crane veteran and pioneer Bob Gleason, founder of the former Chicago based crane distributor and rental company, Gleason Cranes, has died at the age of 81.

Gleason passed away in his sleep at his Chicago home on Saturday night, August 21st due to heart failure. He leaves behind two daughters, Ginny Rice and Karen Murray, two brothers - Gerald and Martin and four grandchildren. His wife of 53 years, Alice sadly passed away in 2002.

Gleason did business with contractors throughout the USA and around the world but was always there for the thing that was most important to him, his family. Those that knew him well said that he liked to begin his conversations by saying, "Before we get down to business, how's everything with you and your family?"

The son of a banker he was born and raised in Joliet, where he was the valedictorian of the class of 1940 at Joliet Catholic High School. He attended Joliet Junior College before enrolling at Purdue University to pursue a degree in engineering.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbour Gleason left school to join the Navy, attending boot camp at Great Lakes, he went on to the University of Illinois in Champaign and later Cornell University in Ithaca, New York for officers training and engineering courses. He was then assigned to the Pacific theatre where he served as an officer on a boat in the Philippines.

Once he was discharged at the end of the war, he returned to the US to complete a degree in aeronautical engineering at Purdue University and then joined Globe Aircraft as an engineer. He went on to work for Illinois Tool Works, General Motors and the Murphy diesel division of Northwest Engineering. But met Alice and two were married in 1949. In 1953 the couple established Gleason Equipment Inc which later traded as Gleason Cranes. One of the company's first big contracts was the construction of the Congress/Eisenhower Expressway, particularly the median for the Chicago Transit Authority.

The company closed its doors in 2003 See Gleason closes its doors

Stuart Anderson of Chortsey Bar new Gleason well and in an tribute to him last year said: “Arguably, over the course of the past 50 years, more people have known the name of Gleason Cranes than any other crane rental company in the world. This is the legacy of Bob Gleason and the team of dedicated professionals that he led. The Chicago based business, founded in 1952 declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy on 22 January.”

“That Gleason Cranes has sold more hydraulic cranes than any other crane distributor in the world is beyond doubt. In one year during the late 1970s the company sold more than 600 hydraulic cranes. In many ways Gleason was a pioneer and innovator. He was not willing to accept the traditional restraints of distributor territories or being restricted to the product lines of a single supplier. Before the auto industry had multi-franchise car supermarkets, Gleason had a crane supermarket. When other crane and equipment distributors simply retailed machinery, Gleason had a thriving rental business. When other dealers stayed within their assigned territories, Gleason was not just nationwide but worldwide.”

“Gleason didn't establish a network of branches to represent his far flung customer interests, though there were early adventures in Germany - with Hans Liebherr and others - and Houston. Gleason learned that he did not need bricks and mortar to support cranes - no matter where they worked - he needed dedicated, experienced service technicians, vehicles and parts. Whether it was supplying cranes for the Alaska pipeline or to Aramco in Saudi Arabia, demanding customers worldwide learned that Gleason's support was quite simply the best.”

“Gleason was a pioneer of the crane rental industry and many of the world's leading contractors came to rely on Gleason. At any one time, Gleason had cranes working with customers in more than 30 states across the USA as well as throughout Latin America and the rest of the world.”

“In recent years, Gleason Cranes has been best known as a Grove Crane distributor of more than 30 years standing. But over the course of its history, it has been the number one worldwide distributor for P&H, Clark Austin-Western, Clark Lima, Sargent and of course, Grove. It was as a distributor for the small US crane and excavator maker Sargent Engineering Co (later acquired by Warner & Swasey) in the mid-1960s that Bob Gleason suggested to its young president Dave Ghysels that he put the operator's cab on the rotating upper of a new 15 ton Rough Terrain he was developing. It was the world's first swing-cab RT.”

“Bob Gleason has never been one for press exposure, speeches or conventions. Often it would be Bob's brother Marty, or his son in law Phil Rice, the widely respected company president, that represented the public face of Gleason Cranes. Or it would be loyal professionals such as Mike Kearney, Ken Martinique and others before them that invariably represented the cream of the business.”