The problem R4R exists to solve

Good morning everyone,

My name is Dean McDonald, and today I want to speak to you about one of the biggest problems in our industry—and what I'm proposing as the solution:

Turning our waste into opportunity.

Background & Industry Context

Before explaining the solution, I think it's important to provide some context to the problem.

I started in the wire rope and rigging industry over 15 years ago with zero experience and zero industry connections. I was handing out resumes to industrial shops around town because I knew it paid better than McDonald's. A rigging shop gave me a call back, and next thing I knew, I was fabricating slings that would hold hundreds of thousands of pounds over people's heads, inspecting rigging that could determine whether someone's loved one came home at night, and working countless days in the rain—or nights in the middle of nowhere—installing rope on cranes.

All of this without a single certificate tied to my name. Just a company willing to trust my ability as a "competent person."

In my early years, I had the opportunity to take a three-day rigger inspector course. It was helpful, but it was the extent of my formal training, and still far beyond much of the technical rigging inspection training I see being provided today.

The Training Gap

Fast forward to today, and we're starting to see more rigging shops and educational institutions offering some form of rigging training which is absolutely needed.

However, on the flip side, I constantly hear feedback from contractors in the field:

• "We don't have the budget for that."
• "We don't have time for that."
• "I hired a crane operator or trained rigger—I already pay them to have this knowledge."

Here's the issue.

In Canada, our education requirement for a crane operator apprenticeship states that only 20% of the course must be on rigging theory. How that theory is defined is entirely up to the educator. That could mean an instructor spends all their time on load handling, sling tension, and center of gravity—and still be fully compliant without ever mentioning inspection or discard criteria.

Without going into the countless other reasons why that's a problem, here's the one that stands out. I've met educators who couldn't tell me the difference between a malleable and forged wire rope clip, or where a bronze bushed swivel hook can be used versus where a bearing swivel hook must be used.

To be fair, we have to ask: Who is auditing the teachers? If they were never taught these things—or never required to learn them—how can we expect them to pass that knowledge on?

There are endless examples where we can point to legislation or process improvements, but ultimately, the conversation always comes back to one thing:

Funding.

The Real Risk in Rigging

When we look at incidents involving rigging, it is almost never due to a defective product—it's how the load is rigged and handled

Fortunately, safety factors and advancements in forging allow steel to bend, twist, and deform rather than fail suddenly without warning.

The best reference for this is your local rigging shop.

How many of you can get your rigging inspected and recertified on the same day? Probably not many. And that process is absolutely critical.

From my experience working nearly a decade in sling shops, I can tell you that at least 80% of rigging that comes in requires some form of repair or replacement:

• Bent hooks
• Stretched chain
• Seized connecting links
• Broken or crushed wires in slings or hoist ropes

Most of the time it's just simple misuse. The rigger doesn't know better or their company didn't provide them with the right rigging to get the job done so they use what they have on hand to get it done, regardless of what it does to the rigging. Those shops have seen it all—and that's a big reason why they often have extended lead times.

But it doesn't stop there.

As any business knows, when demand increases, you hire more people. But that's not easy when you don't have a qualified and competent labor pool.

This applies across the heavy lift industry:

• Crane operators
• Ironworkers
• NDT technicians
• Crane erectors

Even where union pools or Red Seal certifications exist, we still have to ask:

How much real rigging education have they actually received?

The Solution: Ropes for Riggers

This is where Ropes for Riggers (R4R) comes in.

Our initiative takes scrap wire rope and rigging and redirects the value from the scrapyard into funding for the next generation of heavy lift professionals.

Every year in North America, we recycle millions of pounds of wire rope, chain, shackles, hooks, and other rigging. That's enough to meaningfully fund heavy-lift trade education across North America.

I'm sure everyone here knows someone who would be an excellent candidate to work in this industry—but funding holds them back.

That's where we step in.

We take what our industry considers waste and turn it into opportunity.

How It Works

When your crane replaces a rope, or your inspector identifies damaged rigging that must be discarded, we coordinate with local scrapyards to collect your waste material.

The proceeds are then directed into our local R4R account.

In return:

• We publicly recognize the donation via social media
• We track all contributions by weight, description, donor, and location

Our goal is to place these funds into high-interest accounts and use the generated interest as available funding. That way the initiative can always grow long past we are gone.

We also maintain records of donors so that students who complete their training have a direct list of potential employers, creating a full-circle system from waste to training, and ultimately employment.

Who It Supports

Our goal is to partner with trade schools across North America to:

• Raise awareness that funding exists
• Encourage entry into heavy lift trades

Long term, we want to reach high school students and position these careers alongside more commonly promoted trades like plumbing and electrical.

We also recognize that our industry has many grey areas when it comes to certification.

That's why funding is not limited to Red Seal trades.

We support:

• Rigging inspectors
• Sling fabricators
• NDT technicians
• Cable installers

And importantly:

• Existing professionals looking to advance their skills

If you're a crane operator who wants to learn rope inspection, or a rigger pursuing advanced handling techniques—this funding is available to you.

Regional Fairness

We also ensure that funds stay local.

If a province or state contributes a certain amount, those funds are allocated back into that same region. We want to ensure that local contributors directly benefit from their support.

Where We Are Today

To date, we have collected 45,220 lbs of material from early supporters including:

• Sterling Crane
• RKM Crane Services
• Cambie Forming

I also want to recognize:

• Ben-Mor Cables
• Van Beest

who have donated purpose-built slings, shackles, and rigging hardware as educational tools for crane training programs across Canada.

Through these efforts, we've learned that many trade schools can issue tax receipts for donations.

This is a direct call to manufacturers:

Support your local educators.

I have yet to meet a trade school instructor who feels they have all the rigging components needed to deliver a truly comprehensive program.

While new equipment is valuable, we also need real-world examples:

• Damaged rope sections
• Bent hooks
• Gouged shackles

These reinforce the importance of inspection in ways theory cannot.

Our long-term goal is to build a full library of real-world failure samples so educators can request exactly what they need.

Closing

Our website is now live, where you can:

• Sign up to donate
• Get notified when funding becomes available

We are actively building:

• Our board
• Our partner network
• Our legal structure

And we are currently in the process of applying for charity status, which will allow us to issue tax receipts and retroactively support early donors.