Reflecting on 50 Years

Eastern Elevator’s Ron Westover semi-retires after a long career.

These days, you’re more likely to find Ron Westover, former vice president (VP) of Eastern Elevator Service & Sales Co. based in Windber, Pennsylvania, on the golf course, at the gun range or restoring one of his beloved vintage trucks. That’s because, earlier this year, Westover retired from a 50-year elevator industry career.

Like many in the industry, Westover grew up in the business. Eastern Elevator was founded in 1959 by Westover’s father, Ernest, who had three sons — in addition to Ron, there are recently retired Stanford, former construction superintendent, and Bradley, former president. “They’ve been in the elevator industry since birth, technically. This was back in the day when you could bring your kids with you on a service call,” says Terrance Gibson, VP of Eastern Elevator’s finance department. Ron and Brad bought the company, and were formally indoctrinated into the business in the mid-2000s.

Ron’s wife, Sally (retired chief operations officer [COO]), confirms this, recalling that her husband of nearly 48 years went to work for the family business immediately after high school graduation in 1972. “He started out as any young son of the owner — as a maintenance man who would take calls at the hospital at 1 a.m.” Eastern, which Ernest had started with a handful of people (of which only one other employee reached the 50-year mark), began specializing in maintenance, but eventually expanded into new construction. Sally says this was Ron’s favorite type of job to oversee, adding:

“That was his true forte — working with the engineers and architects to see a project come together from nothing. He loved studying and writing specs and figuring out how the elevator system would best fit into and serve a new building. He and the other company leaders used that base of new-construction projects to help build a strong maintenance base.”

Sally describes Eastern Elevator as “a mom-and-pop shop” for which maintenance is its bread and butter. As COO, Sally was the workhorse in the back office. Brad ran the maintenance and sales departments; Ron ran the construction and modernization departments. The company caters to facilities that have just a few units, including apartment complexes, office buildings and smaller local hospitals. At its height, Eastern Elevator installed 75 new elevators in one year under Ron’s leadership.

In the past 10 years, Sally says, Eastern Elevator became more focused on modernizations, which “are a lot more complicated and take quite a bit more time to get right.” Her husband realized that’s where the biggest revenue was, so he shifted gears and focused on these projects to nurture that part of the business.

By the 2010s, Eastern Elevator had grown to more than 50 employees, and has 63 on the payroll today. In December 2020, the Westovers finalized an agreement to sell to American Elevator Group. Brad and Ron remained at the helm to see through the transition until December 2022.

He loved studying and writing specs and figuring out how the elevator system would best fit into and serve a new building. — Sally Westover

What Ron Westover will miss most about work, Sally says, is interacting with others in the industry and watching technology progress (although, she says, he plans to keep up with that through reading publications like ELEVATOR WORLD). What he doesn’t particularly like about progress, she says, are the ever-increasing costs. Over the years, Sally says, Ron “felt bad” about the increasing prices he was forced to charge for elevators and parts but realized “that’s just the way things are.” Eastern has always made it a point to give a fair price for superb quality work, she says.

In addition to playing golf and spending time on the gun range, Ron Westover likes to stay active — reloading his own ammo and attending family gatherings. He and his wife own a summer home in Pennsylvania and a winter home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where they “snowbird.” Over the past 10 years, Ron has restored a 1983 Ford F150 and a 1976 Ford F100. He’s currently on the lookout for a 1988 Ford Bronco to restore, because, Sally says, “that was his favorite elevator maintenance route vehicle when he was working in the field.”

She concludes:

“If asked, Ron would say he is most proud of his role in building one of the largest independent elevator companies in Pennsylvania, of the employees he has had the privilege of mentoring and of giving back to his community, but what he will not miss are the long hours.

“Ron is very much still a part of the Eastern Elevator family as he has signed on to remain a consultant for Eastern, allowing him to still do what he loves, on a schedule he can love, too.”