KOBELCO USA announces the retirement of construction industry veteran, George Lumpkins.

KOBELCO USA announces the retirement of construction industry veteran, George Lumpkins.

Photo: Courtesy Of KOBELCO USA

KOBELCO USA announces the retirement of construction industry veteran, George Lumpkins.

KOBELCO USA announces the retirement of construction industry veteran, George Lumpkins.

Construction industry veteran set to retire from Katy-based KOBELCO USA

With 45 years in the construction industry, George Lumpkins, wears multiple hats at Katy-based KOBELCO Construction Machinery USA, but he is retiring after more than 26 years with the company.

Since the general manager of marketing, general service manager and product developer manager one man plans to retire, he will probably have a lot more time on his hands soon.

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George has been involved in every aspect of our business, said Jack Fendrick, chief operating officer and vice president of KOBELCO USA. From sales, service, engineering, marketing, product development and production, Georges fingerprints are on all of our successes. His leadership, work ethic, integrity and passion for the industry have been instrumental in helping to grow the KOBELCO brand in the North American and Latin American markets.

Although Lumpkins has been with KOBELCO since 2013, he spent earlier years with KOBELCO/Yutani beginning in 1985, when he worked as a product and service manager, sales application engineer and a sales and training manager.

Fendrick said Lumpkins would be missed as he heads into retirement and that the KOBELCO USA team is thankful they had the chance to work alongside him.

Thank you, George, for your invaluable guidance and extraordinary contributions to KOBELCO over the years, Fendrick said.

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While working for KOBELCO, Lumpkins has gone on 77 trips to Japan, 15 trips to China and others to Europe, Latin America and Asia with the goal of growing technologies that have helped to make the companys excavators efficient and powerful. In addition, he has spearheaded excavator service, quality and service enrichment for dealers, customers and manufacturing teams.

After graduating from Texas A&M University with an industrial distribution degree, Lumpkins started his career in 1975 with the Bucyrus-Erie Company. There he learned about service and service training, sales and quality control. Then, he spent a year living on a customer job site and studying a prototype excavator during development. Afterward, he worked as the crane, excavator and dragline, machine erector and sales demonstrator. He continued to grow in his career, working in senior-level management at a few companies, such as Mitsubishi, LiuGong, and Case New Holland and KOBELCO.

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According to a news release, KOBELCO will spread Lumpkins duties across several qualified employees, including Dan Collins, product marketing manager and senior warranty manager; Dave Donneral, assistant product marketing manager; Todd Dohnal, sales training manager; and Brittany Swales, warranty manager.

The employees on this new team share the same passion for the industry as George does, Fendrick said. They will stand on the foundation that George built at KOBELCO, continue to develop new solutions and innovations for increased productivity and efficiency and deliver superior sales, service and product support to KOBELCO dealers and customers.

Lumpkins plans to consult for KOBELCO through December 2020.

KOBELCO Construction Machinery USA offers crawler excavators ranging from 3,000 to 185,000 pounds in classes such as zero tail swing, compact, standard, long reach, high and wide undercarriages, mass excavation, auto recycling and demolition models.

For more information on KOBELCO Construction Machinery USA or KOBELCO products, visit http://www.KOBELCO-USA.com or call 281-888-8430.

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Construction industry veteran set to retire from Katy-based KOBELCO USA - Chron