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New Chairman at CRAC helm

The Crane Rental Association of Canada (CRAC) announced the new board of directors at its 2020 Annual General Meeting. Gijs (Gus) Verdeijen takes the leadership role as Chairman for 2020-2021, which will complete his last year of his second three-year term on the Board. He is taking over for Ryan Burton, the previous Chairman.

Verdeijen joined the crane industry 25 years ago and will celebrate his 25th anniversary at Mammoet on August 1. He started with Mammoet in Holland as an engineering graduate and moved from Holland to Canada in 2002. Verdeijen lives in Sherwood Park with his wife Ellen, a professional photographer, and their three children.

“Normally the current Chairman would host the annual conference and hand off the position to the incoming Chairman at the end of the event,” said Verdeijen. “Obviously things look a little different this year so the hand off will happen during the AGM.”

The incoming Chairman said CRAC is going to be hosting more virtual meetings in 2020 then they’ve done before and also will be continuing its efforts of forming CRAC into an advocacy group for the crane and crane rental company industry.

“There is a call now for more advocacy in the industry and the team and myself want to continue developing that and move towards fortifying the role that CRAC can play,” he said. “We want to be more of an association that advocates for and is a voice for the crane rental companies.”

Verdeijen is looking forward to further developing new initiatives, especially surrounding the Boom Dolly Research Committee and spending more time integrating the Diversity and Inclusion Group but understands that changes always take time.

“These things take time. Time to develop new guidelines and procedures. Red tape to cross with provinces. It can be time consuming and sometimes take longer than we hoped for but I am looking forward to a year of growth,” he said. “If you asked me pre-pandemic how to connect a country so fast digitally, I wouldn’t have had an answer, but since everyone is growing more and more used to this situation, interacting and talking over virtual meetings could move things along for us faster than before.”