Kubota Opens R&D Center, Expanding North America-Based Innovation
Kubota North America Corp., the parent company for Kubota Tractor Corp., and Kubota Manufacturing of America, and Kubota Canada Ltd. celebrated the grand opening of the new 280-acre, Research and Development Center in Gainesville, Ga., to meet the needs of North American customers. Kubota has invested more than $85 million to bring the new facility online and will open with 70 engineering and technical employees and grow to nearly 200 employees over the next five years.
“Constant investment in our North America infrastructure keeps Kubota evolving and forward-looking,” said Yuichi “Ken” Kitao, president and representative director, Kubota Corp. “We continuously innovate to better meet the needs of our customers – it’s at the core of what we do, it drives our way of thinking and the way we do business. This new R&D center here in Georgia is going to allow us to continue to innovate products and solution advancements with our U.S. and Canada customers’ needs in mind.”
Kitao served as U.S. president and CEO of Kubota Tractor Corp. from 2011 to 2013 and championed the North America R&D strategy. The new state-of-the-art center is 100-percent powered by renewable energy and built on the sustainable principles that are in keeping with the company’s global mission to use technology and efficient operations and practices. For example, the center is powered in part by solar sunflowers and the parking lot features a solar-powered roof to support electric vehicle charging stations. The center will house engineering offices, workshops and testing labs, and outside are tracks for testing turf, utility vehicles, tractors and construction equipment.
As the keynote speaker for Kubota’s grand opening event, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said, “The agriculture industry is the biggest business in the State of Georgia, so we are excited that Kubota, a world leader in agriculture equipment, has chosen Georgia as the home of its North American research and development center. It’s great to see Kubota continue to expand their footprint and add more jobs here in Georgia.”
50 Years of Innovation
President and CEO for Kubota Tractor and Kubota North America, Shingo Hanada, marked the occasion by stating, “Kubota is celebrating 50 years of innovation in the U.S., and our goal is to continue to make strategic investments in our infrastructure to develop solutions to ultimately help our dealers and our customers achieve more as we grow together for the next 50 years and beyond.”
In terms of added jobs, Phil Sutton, vice president for Kubota Manufacturing of America added, “We’re continuing to build on an already strong foundation in the state of Georgia where we employ more than 3,000 team members across manufacturing, sales, distribution and engineering operations.”
Kubota’s Georgia footprint also includes its Southeast Division office, located in Suwanee, Ga., with additional divisional offices located in Edgerton, Kan.; Fort Worth, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Lodi, Calif.; and KCL headquarters in Pickering, Ontario, Canada, all of which are positioned to provide regional support for all Kubota dealers.
For career opportunities, visit Kubota Manufacturing Careers or contact [email protected].
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.