From Crane Industry Experience to Customer-Focused Training: How Qualified Crane Training Built Momentum

By Tech Comm News

Some companies are born from invention. Others are built from frustration with the way things have always been done.

Qualified Crane Training appears to be the latter.

In the interview, founder Jay Strande describes a path that started inside the crane industry itself. He says he entered the business in 2012, worked his way up through a large crane company, and eventually became a regional sales manager. Along the way, he developed a strong interest in training and safety. By 2018, he had come to believe there was a better and more cost-effective way to serve customers. That thinking led to the launch of the company on August 1, 2019. 

That origin story matters because it reflects a pattern technical communicators see often: the best training solutions are frequently created by people who have lived with the problems firsthand. In this case, the challenge was not simply selling services. It was making training more effective, more practical, and more aligned with what customers actually need. 

Strande also makes clear that the company’s early momentum was tested almost immediately. After a promising start in 2019, COVID disrupted operations in early 2020 and slowed progress for months. But even in that environment, the company began landing major work. In the interview, Strande points to Stellantis as the first large customer and says the team trained more than 1,500 people across multiple plants, including Warren Stamping, Sterling Stamping, Kokomo, Belvidere, and Brampton.

That kind of scale does not happen by accident. It usually depends on something deeper than subject matter expertise. It depends on credibility, consistency, and the ability to translate technical complexity into instruction that people can actually use.

That is where Eric Street enters the story.

Street says he has worked in the crane industry since 2003, primarily in technical support and training roles. Over time, he advanced into leadership over technical training for a large region spanning North and South America. His background, as described in the interview, is rooted in technical depth but also in communication, training delivery, and customer-facing problem-solving.

For readers in technical communication, that combination should sound familiar. The strongest trainers are rarely just presenters. They are interpreters. They connect systems, procedures, risk, and human understanding. Street’s experience appears to fit that pattern closely. In the interview, Strande goes so far as to describe him as one of the best trainers he has ever seen and someone he knew needed to be part of the business.

The timing, however, was not simple.

Street explains that after being laid off during the COVID period, he began considering the move, but both he and Strande were careful about timing and legal boundaries, including waiting out a non-compete rather than forcing the issue. That detail stands out because it reinforces another important point: building a business is not only about ambition. It is also about discipline. In the interview, both men emphasize wanting to do things correctly and by the book.

By April 2021, Street came on as an owner, and Strande says that was when the company really began to take off. Later, in 2024, Strande and Street bought out original partner Tom Hunter and became the sole owners of the company.

There is a broader lesson here for the technical communication field.

We often talk about content strategy, knowledge transfer, user understanding, and training effectiveness as if they are separate disciplines. In practice, they are tightly connected. The interview suggests that Qualified Crane Training grew because its leaders understood that expertise alone is not enough. Customers need instruction that is usable, scalable, and grounded in real operational experience. 

That is also why the entrepreneurial thread in this conversation feels relevant beyond the crane industry. At one point, the discussion turns to the risk of starting something new and the leap of faith that comes with building a business. That language is familiar to many communicators, trainers, and consultants who have had to turn experience into value and trust into growth. 

What makes this story interesting is not just that a company launched in a specialized market. It is that the company appears to have grown by centering the very things technical communicators care about most: clarity, effectiveness, safety, customer outcomes, and the practical realities of learning in the field.

In an era when many organizations still treat training as a checkbox, stories like this are a useful reminder that good instruction is not overhead. It is infrastructure.

And when that infrastructure is built by people who understand both the equipment and the learner, it can become a competitive advantage.

If you want, I can turn this into a more publication-ready version with a sharper headline, meta description, and a shorter social promo blurb.

For more information on Qualified Crane Training & Consulting, LLC, visit their website to explore course offerings, consulting services, and training resources. The company provides technical training for overhead and mobile cranes, including operator certification, inspection, rigging, and signaling. Contact them at 1-800-704-8730 or info@qualifiedcranetraining.com.