About

A lifetime of wanting to understand.
A business built from that curiosity.

I'm Justin Cronk. A systems and operations builder first, a developer second. I help businesses understand how their people, processes and tools can work better together.

I've spent a lifetime trying to understand things. That curiosity has taken me through field operations, clinical practice, teaching and project work. I bring it to understanding a business as a whole: how it operates, what people need from one another, and where a better system could help.

Currently, I work full-time as a project manager and estimator in the power delivery sector, specifically transmission lines and substations, running the same estimating, cost-tracking, and field-to-office reporting problems this practice is built to solve.

Earlier I did field exploration and sampling on a mineral exploration project in Nunavut, out of a remote fly-in camp, and assisted in the core processing facility. Before that, core processing and field support on a uranium exploration project in Colorado, and contract grid line-cutting for geophysical surveys in northern Minnesota.

I also spent years on the clinical side. I hold a bachelor's degree in human biology, taught biology as an adjunct professor, worked as an athletic trainer alongside physicians and professional athletes, and practiced as a chiropractor. I never subscribed to the adjustment philosophy. What interested me was biomechanics: how a body moves, how it compensates, and why every patient needs a solution built for them rather than a protocol applied to them. I no longer practice. I started the clinic with my wife's support and she took it over. She is the heart of it now, and I build the systems behind it.

Working in different settings taught me to follow the handoffs. A problem that looks like missing software can be unclear ownership, an awkward process, or information stuck in the wrong place. I want to understand that before recommending a fix.

I began building my own solutions because I wanted coherent systems instead of a patchwork of workarounds. Today that means offering practical guidance and recommendations, using existing tools where they fit, and developing the missing pieces where they don't. Supported APIs create more ways to connect information while keeping the business in control of its data.

And before all of it, I was 21 years old and serving overseas when I was asked to help with casualty reporting in Iraq. I inherited a pile of data that did not agree with itself. I built a spreadsheet. That spreadsheet ended up in front of people whose decisions depended on those numbers being right, which is not a thing I expected and not a thing I have forgotten.

That range, construction and utilities on one side, mining and exploration geology on the other, and data systems tying it together, is why this practice isn't built around a single industry or a single software platform.

Across exploration camps, a clinic, a lecture hall, a war zone and a substation estimate, one thing has never changed: all anyone wants is good information they can trust. That's the job.

Experience

Project Manager & Estimator
Power delivery: transmission lines & substations · Current
Field Exploration & Sampling
Mineral exploration, Nunavut, remote fly-in camp; also assisted in the core processing facility
Core Processing & Field Support
Uranium exploration project, Grand Junction, Colorado
Grid Line-Cutting, Contract
Geophysical exploration survey support, northern Minnesota
Chiropractor
Practice focused on biomechanics and rehabilitation; no longer in practice
Adjunct Professor of Biology
Undergraduate instruction
Athletic Trainer & Sports Rehabilitation
Work alongside physicians and professional athletes
United States Military
Overseas service; assisted with casualty reporting in Iraq
Published Author
Several titles
Systems Builder, Operations
Principal, Cronk Companies LLC

What that background changes about the work

I test with the person doing the work

Not the person most excited about the technology. A foreman at the end of a twelve-hour day is the judge, and he is a hard one.

I have been the person re-typing it

From a paper log in an exploration camp to an estimate built on other people's records. The distance between those two is where the money goes.

I would rather say "don't build it"

Most of what I am asked to build turns out smaller once six questions are answered. I would rather tell you that than sell you a system.

"I'd rather deliver a working prototype than a slide deck, and I'd rather tell a client to buy an existing product than build them something worse."

Talk to the person, not a sales team

Thirty minutes, free, on Teams or by phone. Email and we'll find a time.

justin@cronkcompanies.com