Patrick Cranston
Cranston IT 
2019 SPEAKERS

It wasn’t difficult to tell where this kid was headed.

As a 12-year-old, Patrick Cranston took his beloved G.I. Joe collection over to his Dad’s Mac® not to play games, but to build a FileMaker database that would catalog the tendencies of each of the action figures. It helped Patrick determine which G.I. Joe had the right stuff to align with the appropriate mission. Again, he was 12 …

The leader of Cranston IT grew up surrounded by family businesses — his grandfather, father and brother all ran their own companies — so it didn’t take him long to realize that working as an employee just wasn’t for him.

“Because it’s in my blood, it just feels natural to me,” Patrick explained. “The first best decision I made was to leave my previous job and focus entirely on starting this business.”

That previous job sparked the epiphany he needed 11 years ago. Working as an Apple® Genius® in Apple’s first retail stores in Pittsburgh, Patrick observed that more and more people were switching to Apple and looking for computer support at home and at work. So he decided to launch a business to fill that support void that existed beyond the Apple Store®. Not as a part-time venture, he said, but as a full-fledged, sink-or-swim, start-up company.

Today, Cranston IT is an Apple-centric professional IT services company serving small business, enterprise, K-12 education and university customers driven by Apple and FileMaker technologies in the tri-state area and beyond.

“The macOS® and iOS platforms provide a better user experience than any other computing platform out there,” Patrick said. “By exclusively supporting them, we are able to differentiate ourselves from the dozens of other IT support firms in the Pittsburgh area … and fill a real need for companies that depend on Apple products.”

The Pittsburgh native is married with two kids. He is passionate about his family, his Stanley Cup Champion Penguins, volunteering at church and shooting. And the team he has built at Cranston IT.

“They are incredibly dependable, and they have allowed the business to take on a life of its own,” Patrick said. “I believe that organizations are a direct reflection of their leadership, so I hold myself to a high standard both in the work I do and how I treat my employees and customers. This influences my employees to act in the same manner and builds a culture of excellence within our team.”