Generac Names New Leaders; Establishes Energy Technology Division
Generac Power Systems has appointed three executives to new top positions and has established a new business organization called Energy Technology. ET will consist of all Generac businesses whose primary focus is on products or services related to storage and energy management products. This includes Generac’s acquisitions of Pika Energy, Neurio Technologies and Enbala Power Networks as well as Generac’s existing Connectivity business.
Combining these teams into one operating group will help position the company as an emerging leader in the energy storage and management industry, while internally aligning objectives and business priorities, and accelerating Generac’s go-to-market efforts. Further, the ET organization will serve as the operating platform for future potential acquisitions in the energy technology space.
Russ Minick will lead the new ET organization, with the title of president, Energy Technology. Under his leadership, the ET team will collaborate with Generac's business groups to deliver a wide range of clean energy products and services to end-markets globally. Minick will also retain his duties as chief marketing officer, leading Generac’s corporate marketing strategy, as he has since 2016.
Patrick Forsythe has been appointed to the newly created position of chief technical officer. In his new role, Forsythe will be responsible for the integration of new and transformative technologies into Generac's products and building a technical team to further support future technical product development needs. Forsythe has led Generac's global engineering team since rejoining the company in 2015. His extensive experience will be pivotal in creating market-defining technologies across the Generac portfolio of products.
Steve Goran has been appointed chief strategy officer. This critical new position is tasked with quickly assessing new business opportunities and ventures, while simultaneously formulating long-term strategy, while also managing the year-round strategic planning and development efforts at the company. Goran has more than 30 years of experience with Generac, having served in many roles within the organization.
"Creation of the Energy Technology organization and these three new roles signals our commitment to leading the energy management industry of the future," said Aaron Jagdfeld, chairman and CEO of Generac. "Along with the board of directors, I congratulate Steve, Patrick, and Russ on their new leadership roles and look forward to the continued growth I know they will help us achieve."
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Michael Roth
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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.