Villanova Magazine

The Man “in the Mud”

by Holly Stratts

“In 1985, while in New York on my way to Scandinavia, a friend’s wife asked me if I wasn’t concerned about terrorists since I traveled so often to places where Americans were being targeted. The honest answer is that I hadn’t given the matter much thought, but her question caused me to realize that I probably needed to do just that. My thinking on the subject brought me to the awareness of the red bull’s eye Americans traveling abroad had figuratively painted on them.

My first solution was that I began to appear as someone who was not an American. Not anything drastic, mind you, just some precautions. I took to wearing turtleneck sweaters and white socks, getting constant flak from everyone I knew before I went overseas. I flew KLM or Lufthansa whenever possible, instead of an American airline. Such a masquerade in transit was about all I could do but at least it was something.”

Excerpt from his soon to be published manuscript.

Ron Cruse is a man on the move, a man on the move in the mud. Mud, in this case, refers to the slang dictionary definition -- less economically developed countries, referencing the continued primary use of dirt roads. Cruse added, “Where there’s mud, there’s money.”
Making money out of mud sounds like a difficult proposition and it has nothing to do with the mining industry. It has to do with transporting critical and sometimes massive equipment and supplies into the most dangerous and unsettled hotspots around the world.
Cruse is president and CEO of Logenix International, L.L.C. Although he founded the company in 2001, Cruse has been in the transportation business since 1982. In a letter from the president on their web site, he noted that “the company is a multi-faceted logistics company that specializes in planning, implementation and shipping services worldwide. The transportation industry can present an array of diverse problems to shippers requiring decisions and foresight from a company with extensive and intimate knowledge of the industry. Logenix is such a company.”

The career search

How did Cruse get into this business? Was it a family legacy or an artful and well thought-out strategy planned all throughout college? Not exactly. “It was strictly an accident,” he said. “I cannot ascribe to any pre-planning of my career choice. It had always been my goal to go to the Big Apple so when I graduated, I joined a bunch of my fraternity brothers in a house on Long Island and we all started looking for work in the city. His first venture into the world of business was in the bond market. “I hated it,” he emphasized. “To be perfectly honest, I may have been a little too interested in continuing my college experience. To say I was less than an ideal employee would be an understatement. After a couple of years in New York I met with a headhunter and began working with a midtown firm specializing in international transportation. That’s how it all started.” The travel aspect was clearly an attraction. He next landed in Los Angeles in the same industry. “That’s when I started doing a lot of work in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. I loved the cultural aspect. In my book I try to highlight the cultural differences that exist in the business environment and what they can lead to from a communications standpoint, from a legal standpoint, from a deductive logic standpoint,” Cruse said.
On his own

Four years later, in 1986, he began his own company, Matrix, continuing in the field of international transportation. While with Matrix, Cruse was involved in transporting goods to many exotic and dangerous areas of the world for many different reasons. His international forays began much earlier. “I have traveled all over the world since 1982 but started with the Middle East. I was in the Middle East in 1983 just before and right after the Marine barracks in Beirut were bombed. I was in Athens a month after the TWA flight was hijacked in 1985 I believe. The Italian cruise ship, the Achilli Lauro was hijacked off the coast of Egypt in 1985. All of these incidents happened while I was moving in and out of the Middle East. I have been involved with elections in Guatemala, moving in special ballots machines as well as all sorts of irrigation programs in Egypt and India that were all government related. I was involved with a large agricultural program in Somalia which took me there months before the ‘Black Hawk Down’ situation. Another agricultural program took me into Myanmar just months before that country unraveled. Once the former Soviet Union opened, I was one of the first Americans to set up a joint Soviet operation and it really took hold. We got involved not only with a lot of infrastructure programs that the United States set up but also in the weapons dismantlement programs. We delivered all of the cutting and destruction implements among them building-sized crushers and guillotines to actually cut missiles and submarines. We delivered them to some of the most secret cities and military bases that only years before had been uncharted waters.”

Cruse did feel a bit uncomfortable being an American abroad. I was very proud to be an American but it was not a good thing to be during that time. I tried to look Dutch or German. I would buy clothes in Europe. This was the kind of thinking that ran through people’s minds in those days.”

Through Logenix, Cruse has continued his service to that part of the world. “Currently we are the contractors for the government for the reconstruction effort in Iraq. That took me there in June. We are the major logistics transportation contractor for the theater as they call it. One of the most daunting programs I’ve seen is basically resupplying all Iraq’s hospitals and clinics. There are about 1,000.” This is a humanitarian effort on the part of the United States. None of these institutions were targeted during the coalition fighting; they had always been inadequate. “The Hussein regime didn’t care whether the Iraqis had adequate health care. We are getting a minimum level of diagnostic a nd treatment capabilities all over the country that did not exist previously.”

Simultaneously, Logenix is extending its expertise to Africa. “We are heavily involved in Liberia. We have a major effort being mobilized out of Europe. The Nigerians have been called upon to be the major peacekeepers in the area,” said Cruse. “We are not only engaged in moving all sorts of safety equipment such as Kevlar vests, vehicles, night sticks, mace, etc., we are currently looking at licensable weapons, basically machine guns that need to be exported from the United States for this U.N. mission. We are also trying to get armored personnel carriers delivered from Nigeria for their troops.” As of September, they moved three very large cargoes full of equipment aboard huge Russian AN-124s directly into Monrovia and fairly regular-size shipments from the United States to supply the troops and personnel on the ground.

A Chance to Reminisce

The question begged to be asked. How did a Lawton, Okla. native wind up at an eastern, Augustinian university? The answer lies in a strong Augustinian connection. “I went to Cascia Hall, an Augustinian prep school in Tulsa. I was a boarding student there beginning in the 10th grade. I had a great experience at Cascia Hall and that kind of made my folks determined that I continue with the Augustinians. My older brother went to Georgetown and I didn’t want to follow in his footsteps. I loved my high school experience and I thought it would be a little of the same experience on the university level. It very much was. I was thrilled that I made the Villanova decision,” he recounted.

I declared as sociology major and wound up with a general liberal arts degree. I was able to take a variety of different classes, some good business courses and some great philosophy courses plus I got a great basis in the study of religions, and not just Catholicism. I refer to a book I read when I had a class with Dr. Schultz because I deal with every religion in the world all the time. The basis of my understanding of Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism all started at Villanova. Of course, I had no idea then. I may have gotten started in this career early and didn’t even know it.”

In retrospect

“The world is shrinking, not expanding. It can be a little precarious at times but I do enjoy being on the edge. Life without adrenalin is not as exciting,” he concluded.