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W W W. M A I N E B I Z . B I Z 51 Fact Book / Doing Business in Maine B U S I N E S S R E S O U R C E S need for a rope-splicing company that could make custom rope products suit- able for things like lifting huge sections of Navy destroyers, raising electrical transformers to the tops of utility poles, or simply climbing trees. Rope isn't a flashy product, and most people don't give much thought to its multitude of uses. But rope is so much more than just clothes lines and sailing lines, and is used in numerous industries — electric utilities, tree-cutting, com- mercial marine, mining, oil exploration, pleasure boating, military and more. After starting the Rope Guru in the fall of 2019 in his home garage in Westbrook, Goddard called upon Crowley, who was a rope-splicing expert from his 16 years at Yale Cordage. ey had rope delivered to the garage and used a simple elevator system to hoist barrel loads of it through a hole in the garage ceiling to a room up above. at's where Crowley made spliced rope products, the first ones coming on a ping-pong table. As the owner, Goddard man- ages the business — sales, account- ing, marketing and the like — while Crowley makes the end products. ey have three major markets they sell to: electric utilities, heavy marine and arborists. Customers For the electric utility market, they sell rope products to companies that work on electric utilities, such as On Target Utility Services, for things like lifting transformers to the tops of poles or pull- ing poles out of the ground and resetting them. For the heavy marine market, the ropes are used by tugboats, barges, sal- vage and other work vessels, or places like General Dynamics Bath Iron Works and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard that need extremely strong rope to lift heavy ship parts and machinery. BIW recently bought four rope slings, each with a carrying capacity of 337,000 pounds. With its huge crane, BIW can use the rope slings together to lift ship sections weighing more than a million pounds. Tree companies typically use the spliced rope products for climbing trees or setting tree branches to the ground after they are cut. e Rope Guru has also supplied products for space tourism, the U.S. military, and offshore oceanographic expeditions. Goddard's even supplied spliced rope for dog leashes, horse leads and saddle hunting, where bow hunters Free business advising and accessible loans for small Maine businesses: Fisheries & aquaculture Farms and food producers ceimaine.org Woman-owned businesses Immigrant-owned businesses Child Care providers Weatherization businesses C O N T I N U E D O N F O L L OW I N G PA G E » P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY Joe Crowley is an expert at splicing and weaving strands of rope to make super-strong connections for Navy destroyers, power transformers and heavy marine vessels.