Tracking the Success of Randy Kraft
by: vicque fassinger
He’s a native from one of the biggest tourist attractions in New York, Niagara Falls. He’s traveled the world. He’s lived below the surface of the sea. He’s transformed local businesses into international corporations. Randy Kraft is a doer, not a dreamer; he’s one of those authentic people who seemingly-effortlessly actually brings those brainstormed ideas at the water cooler to fruition. His cool confidence and insatiable interest in technology, combined with his down-to-earth, approachable personality, make it easy to see why everyone wants Randy Kraft on their team.
Following his service to the U.S. Navy as a Nuclear Engineer and a member of the Special Forces for over six years, Kraft was recruited for a role on a fast-track management program with a business forms company. His reputation ~ not only as a business solutions provider extraordinaire, but also as a mastermind of bleeding-edge technological innovations ~ keeps the recruiters calling and the emails overflowing from his colleagues, his clients, and his competitors. Everyone wants to pick his brain to see what makes this self-proclaimed technology freak so innovative, so creative, and so accomplished.
In 1995, Kraft so greatly impressed the owner of a company in the pharmaceutical industry while taking him on a tour of some available real estate owned by Kraft’s employer in the business forms world, that right then and there he was offered a career opportunity he simply could not refuse. Kraft catapulted his role from the fast-track management program to the positions of both Facility Designer and Director of IT Infrastructure in the pharmaceutical industry.
In 1999, serendipity stepped in again; Kraft was recruited by National Air Cargo, one of the largest and, with Kraft now at the helm of this company’s IT Department, one of the fastest growing freight forwarding companies in the world. As a direct result of Kraft’s technical savvy and uncanny ability to identify opportunities for growth often overseen by others, National Air Cargo blossomed from a North American company employing 30 people in New York to a global enterprise with hundreds of staff members and thousands of clients throughout the world.
And as if that wasn’t enough of an example of how Kraft continuously strives to make things better than how he finds them, in 2004, while serving as an agent of change and the VP of Information Technology, Kraft invented a GPS real time tracking device for the logistics industry. Geared toward the client shipping freight that is not only of high value and has the potential for theft, but also needs to be moved at a high velocity through a supply chain, this state-of-the-art gizmo provides real time visibility from the moment the freight is literally tagged with the device inside the actual packaging. Utilizing GPS, cellular, Wi-Fi, and satellite communications, Kraft’s invention captures the exact location of the freight at every point through its ventures – whether locally, nationally, or globally.
In the summer of 2008, Kraft left his position with National Air Cargo with their blessings to partner and work collaboratively with another executive from National Air Cargo to launch, market, and secure contracts for this technological treasure for both the military’s and the public sector’s involvement in the logistics industry.
When Kraft is not eating, breathing, and dreaming technology and conceptualizing bleeding-edge gadgets that can profoundly change and improve the way things are, he is spending quality time with his wife and six children. The 19th century author, Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, “The greatest works are done by the ones. -The hundreds do not often do much – the companies never; it is the units – the single individuals, that are the power and the might.- Individual effort is, after all, the grand thing.” While Kraft is the type of humble and charismatic fellow that would never think to say that he has gotten where he is in his life all by himself and without the efforts of others on his team, it is clear to everyone around him, that he is a thinker, a creator, a doer, and an inventor – and all those attributes always come from within.
To read other feature articles, simply click on the PREVIOUS ENTRIES button below.
