We received the sad news earlier this week that crane veteran Paul Brown has died. He passed away last Friday, April 4th at the age of 76.
Paul Brown
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Brown spent most of his school years in Billingham, Northeast England and after graduating in 1973 moved to Italy in 1973 where he taught English in Milan and Rome. He began his crane career with P&H in Rome in 1977, and it was here that he met and married his wife and his first son was born.
In 1980 he transferred to the P&H facility in Dortmund where he held several positions in sales and marketing and witnessed first hand the start of the first All Terrain crane industry, with the P&H WS-250M, and Omega S15 family, which, according to him, were developed and produced in a response to an idea and request from the Sparrow brothers. It was also while living in Dortmund that his second son was born.
A P&H -250 All Terrain
In 1989, he joined crane and crane carrier manufacturer Faun in Lauf as area sales manager for the Middle East but left in 1990. Soon after the company was acquired by Tadano and renamed Tadano Faun. The following year he returned as product manager.
In the 1990's, his duties were mainly in the product marketing and product/sales training areas, in “helping to spread the All Terrain gospel to the Tadano people in Japan and at their branch offices and to their distributors." In 1992 he married for a second time to a German lady, Ina.
From 2002 until he retired – for the first time – in 2014, he served as area sales manager responsible for the UK and Ireland, adding Italy, Poland, the Baltic countries, Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia along the way.
On the stand at GIS just before retirement two
A company representative said: “Paul Brown became an ambassador for the German Japanese connection and friendship as he was first trainer for many of our Japanese colleagues who he trained on the product sales and technical issues of the European built All Terrain cranes. He organised and presented sales and product knowledge sessions in Japan, Germany and many other countries in European."
"Paul built recruited and supported many up current and former sales partners and distributors in Europe, including HCT, Graco, Bulgarcom and others. He always showed a deep interest in the products with a focus on professionalising the Tadano product management insight for sales colleagues which led to best practice references for younger and junior sales team members. He introduced our technical specification and competition comparisons, including load chart comparisons and analysis."
“Paul will definitely leave a big gap in our hearts many of us and he will be missed by many."
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