07.01.2010

Birkhauser retires

Dave Birkhauser Manitowoc’s senior vice president of sales for the Americas region of has retired from after a life in the crane industry.

Birkhauser began his crane industry career with his first full time job as a sales representative for America State Equipment, a Manitowoc distributor in Milwaukee. After spending almost 20 years with the company he left the industry for s short period, but returned in the mid 1980s when Krupp asked him to manage its North American organisation.
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Dave Birkhauser

Birkhauser built up a team at Krupp to introduce its medium to large All Terrain cranes to the North American market. “The cranes had become a highly successfully product in Europe, where the roading requirements were 12 tonnes per axle. But roading restrictions in North America were much more stringent,” he says. “Our engineering team was able to reconfigure the cranes to make them roadable in almost all states, which was essential to the cranes’ success in North America.”

He remained with the business as senior vice president of sales and marketing, when it was purchased by Grove in 1995. When Manitowoc bought Grove in 2002, he became senior vice president of sales for the Americas region.

From 2002 until his retirement at the end of 2009, he led the North American sales force through one of the best markets the crane industry has ever seen. His personal contacts, product and market knowledge were key contributors to Manitowoc’s strong growth during this seven year period.

Birkhauser and his wife Terri have relocated to North Carolina to be near an all year round golf course and the couple’s grandchildren. “But not necessarily in that order,” he insists.