Beacons of distinction

Tinkering his way to success

Born in the city of Oshawa, an automobile manufacturing hub in Canada, Ronald Ball has always been exposed to all things engineering.

The fact that his father ran an automobile repair shop also meant that his childhood was spent tinkering with tools and running around with a wrench in search of things to fix.

Like many of the residents within his community, Ball worked at the General Motors plant in the city after graduating from high school. He left after a year to pursue higher education in mechanical engineering at Ryerson University before working as a maintenance foreman at a manufacturing plant that made steel springs for cars and trains.

But it was his subsequent stint at the renowned tire and rubber company Goodyear that proved to be his springboard to success.

"The Goodyear facility I worked at produced industrial rubber products instead of tires. One day, a company approached us to buy raw materials so that they could make escalator handrails. That was when I got the opportunity to learn the manufacturing process for such a unique product," said Ball.

"When I left Goodyear in 1976, I studied the market and was convinced that I could make a business out of selling handrails. That company I used to service has since became my competitor."

A year later, Ball founded the Escalator Handrail Company (EHC). Over the past four decades, EHC has grown to become a leading supplier of handrails as well as a host of other rubber and plastic components for lifts and escalators. It counts major companies such as Schindler and Otis as its clients, and has branches in 21 countries including China, Germany, Japan, Spain and the United States.