Before joining BrandSafway eight years ago, Gabe McCabe worked around the globe.
“I’ve lived in seven different countries — Ireland, the U.S., India, the Netherlands, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and the U.K. for periods of at least a year,” McCabe said. “I don’t even count short-term assignments. Here in the U.S., I’ve lived in six cities — New York City, Kansas City, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Chicago, and now Houston is my home.”
Serving up international expertise to meet industry challenges
GABRIEL McCABE, President, Industrial, Energy and Commercial, BrandSafway
McCabe grew up in Ireland and attended the University of Limerick, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. After graduation, he was hired by General Electric as part of its international field engineering program, which gave him the opportunity to live and work in many countries, constructing and servicing power plants. Later, he earned an MBA from Emory University.
After 10 years of field technical and project management roles, he spent the next 10 years at GE moving through the ranks in engineering, supply chain and customer service, leading up to running different business units in GE’s power and oil and gas companies.
These experiences eventually led him to a career at BrandSafway in the company’s International Division. In April 2022, he was appointed to his current position as president of the Industrial, Energy and Commercial Division, responsible for driving growth in access, energy, coatings and refractory services.
The most important aspect of McCabe’s current role is the well-being of his employees. “The safety of our people is without question the most crucial part of my position,” he said. “At peak periods, we have as many as 30,000 employees working at more than 1000 customer locations in North America. Fortunately, as a company we have a 100-year legacy of continuous improvement in safety. Maintaining and enhancing our company’s safety culture, while striving to set a standard for the industry, are critical to me.”
Growing, strengthening and retaining BrandSafway’s team of employees is another key focus of McCabe’s position. “We have invested in our hiring centers and streamlined our onboarding processes,” said McCabe. “We’re also continuing to emphasize the training and development of our entire organization including to our frontline supervisors.”
Using technology and innovation to help its workforce to safely increase productivity is another critical part of McCabe’s role. “Our customers look to us to help drive efficiencies,“ explained McCabe. “We’re leveraging digital tools to improve planning, increase productivity and eliminate rework; and developing innovative solutions to enable our teams and site contractors to be more productive — such as rope access, a range of hoist and motorized options, suspended solutions like our QuikDeck® Access System and our suite of BrandTech® welding solutions. We work closely with our customers to help them work better, smarter and safer.”
For more information, visit brandsafway.com or call (800) 558-4772.
