Melvin Porter

President & CEO / Link-Belt Cranes

Melvin Porter is President/CEO of Link-Belt Cranes, a leader in the design and manufacture of telescopic boom and lattice boom cranes based in Lexington, Kentucky. 

Melvin is a graduate of Morehead State University, with a B.B.A. degree with a major in accounting. He began his career working for a regional accounting firm and is a Certified Public Accountant. He was controller for a publicly traded steel company for ten years. 

Melvin joined Link-Belt Cranes in 1999 as Manager, Financial Planning and Taxes. He served as CFO and Vice President of Finance from 2004 to 2017, before being promoted to President and CEO in May 2017. During this time, Melvin has also been actively involved in overseeing operations of Link-Belt’s company stores: Triad Machinery based in Portland, Oregon and Link-Belt Mid-Atlantic, based in Richmond, Virginia.

Melvin has served on Link-Belt Cranes’ board of directors since 2011 and was promoted to Vice President of Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd. of Tokyo, Japan in April of 2022, a significant show of support by Link-Belt’s parent company. He has served as a member of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers Board of Directors and CE Sector Board since 2019 and the Finance Committee since 2017. He has served on the Fifth Third Bank Regional Advisory Board since 2020.