Terex President and CEO John L. Garrison has been elected the company’s new board chairman.
The corporation, which includes such brands as Genie aerial lifts and telehandlers, has been posting strong financial results this year. In second quarter 2018, Terex announced a 19 percent increase in sales.
Under Garrison’s leadership, Terex has sold various businesses, including its Material Handling & Port Solutions segment, as well as underperforming construction businesses. The company has been focusing on core businesses of aerial work platforms, cranes and materials processing.
When Garrison arrived in 2015, Terex had acquired 50 companies in more than 20 years, with duplicating manufacturing locations, multiple accounting systems and other complexities, according to the company’s 2017 annual report. The company has since reduced its manufacturing space by 27 percent by outsourcing low-value manufacturing activities and consolidating other activities, particularly in its crane segment.
An example of this consolidation is the building of a new plant for subsidiary Terex Utilities’ operations in Watertown, South Dakota. Operations there for aerial devices, digger derricks and auger drills have been spread among 10 locations and will eventually be housed in the new facility to be finished in 2019.
Garrison joined Terex in 2015 after serving as CEO of Bell Helicopter since 2009. Bell is a division of Textron, which Garrison joined in 2002 and served as president of its industrial segment, composed of E-Z-Go golf carts, Greenlee, Jacobsen and Kautex.
He has also served as CEO of Azurix Corp., a global water company, and as vice president of Case Construction Equipment agricultural divisions. He is a 1982 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and earned an MBA from Harvard University. He served 10 years in the Army, including as an airborne ranger.
