Oshkosh Corp. Names Former JLG President Wilson Jones its Next CEO
Oshkosh Corp., parent company of aerial work platform manufacturer JLG Industries, announced that CEO Charles Szews will retire effective Dec. 31, and will be replaced by Wilson Jones, current president and chief operating officer. Jones, who has been with the company since 2005, took over the access segment (JLG) in May 2010 when long-time JLG leader Craig Paylor resigned.
Szews, who has served as CEO for five years, will also retire from the company’s board of directors, on which he served since 2007. Szews joined Oshkosh in 1996 as chief financial officer and served as president and COO from 2007 through 2011.
Richard Donnelly, current chairman of the board at Oshkosh, said Szews demonstrated strong leadership leading the company to successfully overcome U.S. Department of Defense spending reductions and the lingering effects of the recent recession.
Jones became president and COO in June 2012, at which time Frank Nerenhausen took over leadership of JLG.
“We expect the transition of Wilson Jones to CEO to be seamless as Charlie and the board have been preparing for this for several years,” added Donnelly. “Wilson has been with the company for a decade, gaining greater leadership and business responsibilities, as well as successfully serving as president for two of Oshkosh’s business segments prior to his August 2012 appointment to president and COO.”
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.