White Digital Media's online business magazine, "Exec" included an interview with Mr. Anthony and Mr. Dick Ferchak in its June 2008 issue. The interview went as follows:
THE SECOND TIME AROUND
Guided by an industry veteran, Ray Anthony International is standing very tall among Florida crane companies
- Written by Kevin Doyle and Produced by Rich Gentile
There is no accounting for the why and the when of inspiration. The trick is to seize the moment when it strikes and make something of it. That's precisely what Ray Anthony did more than 40 years ago when he first ventured into the crane business.
These days, Anthony is the owner and President of Ray Anthony International, a Florida-based multi-million dollar crane company with cranes of every size imaginable capable of completing tasks ranging from the very small to the gargantuan. The company has nine primary sites, with six in Florida, and is the second crane company Anthony has built from the ground up.
Anthony sold his first crane business in 1998 and waited until his no-compete clause expired to go back into the crane business he now has. "It was with a lot of hard work and a lot of good people dedicated to the work" that set his first company, Anthony Crane Rental, on the road to success. "I had a lot of good people, that's the story. There wasn't any genius about it," he says.
One of those good people was the father of current CEO Dick Ferchak. "Dick's father was with me from the beginning and Dick, Jr. has been with me since high school," Anthony says. A graduate of the University of West Virginia, Ferchak says, "I grew up in the business, like Mr. Anthony said. In 1985 I started working for him in high school and grew from there. In college I worked the cranes and drove trucks, then started as a dispatcher in Arizona after college and worked my way up."
Couldn't Stay Away
When Anthony sold his first company he was required to observe the five-year non-compete period.
During that time he bought a number of other businesses, including a marina and an airport.
"When my five years were up, I said let's get back in the crane business. You do what you know and, if you know what you're doing, you have a better chance to be successful," Anthony says.
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