01.08.2025

Giuseppe Corna 1950-2025

We have received the sad news that Giuseppe Corna, founder of Italian crane manufacturer GRC/TeknoGRC has died.

He passed away last Saturday, July 26th, at the age of 75 surrounded by his family. He leaves behind wife Rita and children Silvio, Paola and Elena along with several grandchildren.

Corna grew up on a small farm in Bariano, to the South of Bergamo, and started out working on the family’s land, where he developed a lifelong passion for working horses, and in particular American Quarter Horses, which he shared with his daughter Paola. It is said that he, or more likely his family, introduced work horses to the area in order to replace oxen for ploughing.

Giuseppe and Paola went on to set up GRC Horses, which breeds and trains horses. They have become extremely well known in Italy’s 'Western saddle'/Reining circuit and not only developed a top level reputation for breeding and training but have also been very successful in competitions.

However, back to his initial career, as the 1970s got going Guiseppe moved into industry, gaining experience and knowledge in engineering, steel fabrication and assembly over the next 10 years. Shortly after celebrating his 30th birthday he set up his own company, GRC, in his home town of Bariano, opening its doors in 1981. Corna and his new business began by providing fabrications and in some cases sub assemblies to agricultural, construction and railway related equipment manufacturers, ploughing the proceeds back into the business, investing in tooling and facilities.

One of his early customers was Italian crane company Hyco which offered a line of Rough Terrain cranes but tended to subcontract production to others. Other customers included Demag and - through Hyco - Krupp which had started branding Hyco cranes, initially for the Italian market. It also picked up a contract to build a custom built 30 tonne crane for the major Italian contractor Soimi.

With the help of GRC’s partnership with Krupp production was increased to three cranes a week, helped along by Grove’s acquisition of Krupp in 1995. GRC began assembling the 35 tonne two axle GMK 2035 All Terrain, which helped bring Grove back into the Italian market and in 2000 GRC was appointed as a Grove dealer.

During the 1990s GRC also began assembling Rough Terrain chassis for aerial lift manufacturers including Oil &Steel, Cella, and Basket - Platform Basket in 2005 and played a role in the production of its road rail boom lifts. In 2005, GRC began working in the foundation crane market with companies such as Soilmec.

The TeknoGRC name arrived In 2014, when Giuseppe Corna passed the day to day management of the business over to his son Silvio. The name also reflected the broadening range of products that the company was getting into such as specialist railway equipment for the Turkish market and a track welding system used on one of Algeria’s longest rail lines and pipeline tools.

More recently the company has begun supplying some of its cranes on an own brand basis to Zoomlion, which exhibited its new 40 tonne city crane as the Zoomlion ATC 400C on its stand at Bauma 2022.

Two or three years ago TeknoGRC introduced its own line of cranes and now offers three telescopic crawlers, from 30 to 45 tonnes, a 30 tonne lattice crawler and a 40 tonne two axle city type All Terrain crane.

Speaking of his father’s passing, son Silvio said: "He will always be our guide and will continue to build cranes from the heavens."

His daughter Paola added “My family and I would like to thank everyone who remembered our dear father and thanks to IRHA , the Italian Reining Horse Association and Lombardia Reining for their words. I told my children that Grandpa will stop up there with Slide and Brigalena. Sincerely thank you all for the warmth and affection during these difficult days.”

Many of Giuseppe’ s customers and suppliers have given tributes, saying how he will be remembered for his strong and frank personality, his ability to talk about almost anything - and everything and the ability to develop strong and lasting friendships.