The Engines Division of Kawasaki Motors Corp. has hired Dave Sugden as director of research and development. Sugden has had product development responsibilities for 27 years, most recently as director of product design and improvement at Scag Power Equipment.
Sugden will manage the growing R&D function at Kawasaki. At the same time Troy Smith is promoted to manager of R&D testing, applications, and EFI, and JJ Zeilstra is named manager of new development and government relations. Matt Ulmenstine was promoted to applications engineering supervisor.
“These personnel moves put Kawasaki in the best position to continue to meet our growth objectives and they signal the company’s continued interest in maintaining both internal cohesion and coordinated integration with our OEM customers,” said Nelson Wilner, executive director. “We are taking full advantage of our new facility capabilities and have been expanding development activities and growing our staff to be well positioned for anticipating OEM needs.
The company’s new 200,000-square-foot building in Grand Rapids, Mich., gives its R&D function a larger footprint for expansion and brings the varied components of the company into closer proximity, helping to achieve greater synergies between departments.
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.