In the summer of 2005, Stacey Ranck took a temporary job at assembly at Ingersoll Rand in Shippensburg. She had one year left of her degree course, but she found that she loved working at a plant. Ingersoll Rand, which was sold to Volvo CE in 2007, produced machinery that was used in road construction.
“In actual fact, I have always liked turning a wrench on a machine. My father had a drilling and blasting business and I used to help out when I was younger,” says Stacey.
She completed her degree in criminal justice, in 2006, and after graduating she made the decision to return to the plant, where she has since had various jobs. The past years have been a period of enormous change in Shippensburg with an entirely new plant and the concentration of production in North America in Shippensburg. The previous Ingersoll Rand plant in Shippensburg has been integrated in the Volvo Group and has been significantly extended. Furthermore, the employees have learned to build a new product, motor graders, following the transfer of production from Goderich in Canada. Stacey is not the type of person who is afraid of new challenges – quite the reverse. She has held various supervisory positions during the past few years.
“My present job, as supervisor of all sub-assembly, is in fact my third job this year. I have 23 assembly workers in my team and they supply three of the assembly lines that are running in the new facility. I was involved in motor grader transition from Goderich to Shippensburg. When we moved to the new plant, my role changed and I was made supervisor of the grader cab line during its transition from Asheville,” explains Stacey.
“Right now, the greatest challenge for all of us working at sub-assembly is to get into sequence with the production lines. The whole plant is also preparing for a ramp-up to meet new orders,” she adds.
Stacey really enjoys working as a supervisor. She describes herself as a person who is very energetic and enjoys having plenty to do. At the same time, she has nothing against trying new things.
“That’s part of the job. I like working as a supervisor because it feels good knowing that you are help ing people. In my plan for the future, I want to develop my leadership skills still further.”
There are some advantages when it comes to working for a global company. When the employees at the Volvo CE plant in China needed help learning how to assemble a specific machine, a number of employees from Shippensburg were sent to Lingong and Stacey was one of them.
“We were there for two weeks and it was really exciting meeting Volvo Group employees in China and helping them. I also had the chance to see a bit of Beijing. If other opportunities of this kind occur, I am definitely going to apply for them.”
Stacey grew up in Pennsylvania, not far from Shippensburg. She currently lives in Fayetteville, about 30 minutes from her workplace.
