Wayne Knabel, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Gorman Rupp Co. will retire from the company March 31, 2016, and will leave his EVP and CFO positions at the end of this year. He will remain employed as a succession planning and strategic planning advisor to the company’s CEO until his planned retirement date.
In accordance with Knabel’s retirement plan, the company has hired James Kerr as vice president of finance beginning July 18. Kerr will assume the CFO position Jan. 1. Before joining Gorman Rupp, Kerr most recently served as executive vice president and CFO of Jo-Ann Stores, a formerly publicly held retail chain of residential consumer products.
Pump manufacturer Gorman Rupp is headquartered in Mansfield, Ohio.
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.