“A good safety culture starts with leadership willing to look in the mirror.”

In this episode of Crane Talk, the crew sits down with Billy Woolf, acting Safety Director for Davis Crane Service, to discuss the realities of managing safety, liability, litigation, and accountability inside one of the country’s largest crane and rigging operations.

Billy shares how his background working directly in the field helped shape his approach to safety leadership and why employee trust matters just as much as written policies. The conversation explores how Davis Crane built stronger accountability systems across multiple locations while maintaining buy-in from ownership, management, and field personnel.

Ron, Gene, and Billy also discuss their experiences meeting with lawmakers in Washington D.C. to advocate for tort reform and explain how rising litigation costs impact equipment investment, insurance premiums, and the future of the industry.

If you work in cranes, rigging, trucking, construction, insurance, or industrial safety, this episode provides an inside look at the operational and legal challenges shaping the industry today.

Connect with Billy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-woolf-4b7832286

About the Show

Crane talk is a podcast hosted by Ron Thompson and Gene Greiner, 2 highly successful insurance producers in the Dallas-Fort Worth region.

About Ron:

Ron has been specializing in the heavy iron insurance world as a broker since 1992. In the complex world of heavy iron risk exposure, Ron’s expertise is in contractual risk transfer, contract review, fleet safety management where “rubber meets the road” and keeping clients updated on legislative issues that effect the crane & rigging industry and maximizing profit for his clientele.

Connect with Ron: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-thompson-ba0a805a/

About Gene:

Gene Greiner is Vice President of commercial insurance for CoVerica with 15 years of focus on heavy construction risk. Based in Dallas, TX, he is deeply embedded in serving this industry’s risk transfer needs and, enjoys active advocacy though the Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association and the Texas Crane Owners Association.  

Connect with Gene: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gene-greiner-b08a0617/

New episodes drop the first Tuesday of each month. Please drop us a line if you have a question or suggestion; you can reach us at podcast@coverica.com. Finally, if you like the podcast, we encourage you to subscribe and leave us a review.