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Rachel McGrath is a seasoned business leader with a rich history of driving growth and innovation across various industries. As the current Chief Executive Officer of Tower Products LLC, headquartered in Easton, Pennsylvania, McGrath brings a wealth of experience in management and leadership to her role. Since assuming her position in September 2023, she has steered the company towards continued success, leveraging her expertise to uphold commitments to employees and the community while maximizing profitability.
Before her tenure at Tower Products, McGrath demonstrated her strategic acumen as the Owner of Cooper Watson LLC, where she honed her skills in business ownership and management from August 2021 to September 2023. Her entrepreneurial spirit and dedication to fostering growth positioned her as a sought-after leader in the industry. Prior to this, McGrath held pivotal roles at One Source Communications and Innosight, where she spearheaded projects focused on process optimization, client onboarding, and revenue generation, showcasing her versatility and ability to drive results.
McGrath’s career journey is marked by a continuous pursuit of excellence and a commitment to innovation. From her early days as a Facilities Engineer at Chevron, where she managed capital projects in the Gulf of Mexico, to her roles in sales leadership and strategic consulting at Innosight, McGrath has consistently demonstrated her ability to navigate complex challenges and deliver tangible outcomes. With her extensive background in business strategy, leadership, and project management, McGrath is poised to lead Tower Productions to new heights of success.
Tower Products, Inc., stands as the foremost provider of pressroom chemical solutions for offset and flexographic printers, pioneering excellence in the industry. With a comprehensive array of products, Tower ensures optimal printing performance, backed by a vast network of over 120 distributor locations worldwide, facilitating seamless accessibility for clients globally. Committed to innovation and quality, Tower Products, Inc., continues to redefine standards, empowering printers to achieve unparalleled results.
Chris Santomassimo: So welcome back to the Think Factory podcast powered by OGC Solutions. And I’m your host Chris Santomassimo from OGC Solutions and I’m excited to be for another on site podcast, second of the day with Rachel McGrath, who is the CEO of Tower Products in Pennsylvania. So welcome to the podcast.
Rachel McGrath: I’m excited to be here. I was a little jealous when Rick was on a couple months back.
Chris Santomassimo: That’s true. That’s true. He did. He got in early, let’s say so, which is great. Yeah. And for anybody who’s interested, that’s Rick Principato, who was, I think the founder of Tower back in the day.
Rachel McGrath: Tower Products was founded by Rick’s father. But at the time it was a cleaning chemicals company, and he was the one who pioneered the focus in the print industry and made it into the wonderful company that I have the privilege of running now.
Chris Santomassimo: Fantastic. Yeah. So Rick was on the podcast back, I think at the Printing United Show last October. So he, he recorded an episode right on the floor. Yeah.
Rachel McGrath: Yeah, I think so. And it’s I for anyone who is wondering, where was Rachel at that show? It was so soon after the acquisition. I closed on the acquisition of Tower at the end of August and then had my first child on September 22nd. So last year was a very big year for me.
Chris Santomassimo: A whirlwind year for sure.
Rachel McGrath: Yeah, yeah. And Rick being the, the wonderful stand up guy in addition to sharp businessman that he is, was kind enough to say, Hey, we’ll make it work. We was and let me have some much needed time with my daughter. And now here I’m back in the seat and ready to go.
Chris Santomassimo: Oh, congratulations. So you packed a lot of stressful events into 2023, that’s for sure. You didn’t by a new house or anything like that?
Rachel McGrath: Ah no, no. But we are looking to buy a house now, so. We might get it in in 12 months.
Chris Santomassimo: Nice. Good. Well, so, you know, I’ve known Tower for a long time, especially in my role with AXA, but I’d love to. Well, I was saying to you before our chat today that I think more people in the printing industry know tower than not know tower. So but it would be great to talk about, you know, you’re new entrants into the business and what what tower is today and what your hope is going to be in the future and just sort of reintroduce folks to talent.
Rachel McGrath: Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I guess I will start with me personally and go from there until I was drawn to Tower and where that means we’re headed. I am an engineer by training. I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Amity and I spent the first few years of my career working for Chevron, the I this is my best one fact. But I did used to take a helicopter to work when I was the facility engineering manager of one of the floating offshore oil platforms. So whatever I do for the rest of my career, I’ll be chasing that. I had the opportunity to go to Harvard and get my MBA after I’d been with Chevron for a few years. So I did that. And then I worked in innovation consulting, which meant looking at how to help our customers, some of whom were large chemical companies. Think about big shifts that are happening in their industry. So when I had the opportunity to start looking for a business to buy, I knew that I wanted something that was technically complex and ideally something that involved some level of an innovation challenge. Just to take advantage of those two pieces of my background and with Tower, I think I’ve really found that obviously there’s a lot of changes afoot in the print industry. And the technical problems that Tower works on are just so interesting and I’ve been learning so much and have so, so much to learn It’s I think it’s something that will will keep me busy for a long, long, long time, I bet to comment on what I there were some pieces about the business that I was drawn to that were were just really great on top of what excites me personally. And those were that we have this this great sales force. They’re, they’re mostly all former press operators. And in the midst of all of all this upheaval in the industry and all these changes and the the big wave of retirements, that’s pulling a lot of the expertize out of the pressroom. We have a great group of people who were there ready to help with problems that arise. So it’s we’ve got the chemicals, but but a lot of what we’re providing is the expertize that goes for how to use those chemicals to make your press run.
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