The million mile man
Russwood are very lucky to have a low turnover of staff, retaining most of our employees for a number of years. Only a handful however have exceeded the 20-year mark, including John ‘Big Mac’ MacRae who started his career with Russwood back in 1996. Find out more about Big Mac in our latest ‘Meet the Team’ blog.
Big Mac is a Newtonmore native, who worked on the railway for 16 years and spent 18 months as a fencer before joining Russwood in the mid nineties. Back then Russwood was a coal merchants who also supplied timber for fencing projects. John sat his HGV test 20 years ago and started delivering coal and good banter all around the valley!
When Big Mac isn’t in his Russwood lorry, he loves to spend time with his wife of 41 years, Susan. They have two children, a wee grandson and another grandchild on the way. To wind down at the weekends, John loves a dram; his dram of choice is a G&T.
Even although Big Mac describes himself as, ‘a technophobe, who can’t even send a text’… When he discovered how to take photos on his phone, he was capturing stunning photos of Russwood projects, as well as beautiful landscapes up and down the country.
As Russwood has grown over the years, so has the lorry. Big Mac’s first lorry was a 7 tonner, it’s now a 26 tonner. The lorry has travelled on many rough roads, squeezed through tight spots and survived bad weather conditions – nothing is too much for Big Mac. Adding up the miles, Big Mac has possibly been on every road in Scotland, including some of the most rural areas and the heart of the city centre in Glasgow – John’s clock has over a million miles!
We’ve had so many compliments at Russwood regarding Big Mac’s fantastic driving skills, and helpfulness with customers and the general public. One of the many was from Andrew (Taylor Wimpey), “delivery today was a tricky one and the driver was exceptionally kind and efficient. He managed to offload the cladding into a narrow lane when many would have (and have) simply refused. He was happy, kind, a credit to Russwood and a good ambassador to have out on the road.”
Big Mac is one in a million and Russwood are very grateful for his continuous hard work and for always going the extra mile.
If you think you have what it takes to join Big Mac and the rest of the Russwood team, check out our careers page. We are currently recruiting for three roles in our Sales, Admin and Architect Liaison Teams.