Takeuchi-US, a compact equipment manufacturer, has announced multiple management changes across its regions.
Director of Sales and Divisional Manager
Henry Lawson and John Vranches have been promoted to new leadership roles. Lawson has been named director of sales, while Vranches will be in a new role as divisional sales manager.
As director of sales, Lawson will take on all the dealer sales development and national account business and activity in North America.
First and foremost, the position is accountable for achieving company market share objectives. This includes areas of dealer sales, such as budgeting, asset management and inventory audit responsibilities, in addition to directing and managing the national rental accounts for market penetration.
“I am honored and privileged to have the opportunity to serve as the director of sales for Takeuchi,” said Lawson. “We have a great team in the field, and a team of professional and courteous office personnel to support our dealers, national accounts and customer base. I look forward to working with each of them as we strive to continue to provide the best products and support in the industry.”
Vranches will manage and direct both the regional business managers and regional product managers to develop and maintain support for the Takeuchi dealer network and the national account base in North America. He also will ensure Takeuchi provides the highest level of products and support to the marketplace.
Additionally, this position works alongside the regional business managers to develop new dealers across North America and provide proper support channels to Takeuchi’s customer base.
“We are excited to have John taking on a new role with his recent promotion. He has held several positions within Takeuchi over the years that will provide him with the knowledge and understanding of the dealers, national accounts and customers’ needs to drive their productivity and efficiencies,” said Lawson. “I look forward to working side by side with John as he helps support our team.”
Regional Business Managers
Robert Vistad and Dillon Headden have joined the staff as regional business managers in the West and Mid-Atlantic regions respectively.
Their main responsibilities include all sales development and activity within a multi-state territory. This includes, but is not limited to dealer development, dealer recruitment, inventory control, collections (parts and machines), forecasting, program promotion and communication.
Vistad has both dealer and manufacturing experience. His last two positions included being a sales manager at an equipment dealership in San Diego, California and a senior account manager for a construction equipment distributor.
“Robert has years of experience working in the manufacturing arena while working with dealers to satisfy the customers’ needs as well as drive efficiencies through the dealerships,” said Henry Lawson, director of sales at Takeuchi-US.
Headden was previously with a national rental company in South Carolina where he was a territory account manager.
“Dillon comes to us with an equipment retail background that will be valuable in helping our dealers work with our end user customers on applications and products,” said Lawson. “We are excited to have both Dillon and Robert join our team and I look forward to working beside them to deliver Takeuchi products to the marketplace.”
Midwest Product Manager
Jim Spicer was named as the new regional product manager for the Midwest.
He will be responsible for dealer sales training, supporting national accounts and national account training, and growing the dealer retail business and market share within the Midwest region.
Spicer comes to Takeuchi with nine years of experience working on the dealer side. He recently was with a dealer in Bloomington, Illinois as a sales account and operations manager. Prior to that, he was a product support specialist working with a dealership in Farmer City, Illinois.
While working with previous dealerships, Spicer received direct sales and service training from Takeuchi product managers as part of Takeuchi’s Sales School. He took part in sales school on five separate occasions.
“Having nearly two decades of experience on the dealer side will be beneficial in this position as Jim will work side by side with our dealers,” said Henry Lawson, director of sales at Takeuchi. “Jim has also received a lot of training on our products from our product managers in the past, so he already knows our products well. The transition will be seamless.”