21.11.2025

Brad Boehler joins Manitou

Manitou North America has announced the appointment of access industry veteran Brad Boehler as president. He will also join the group's executive board

Based in West Bend, Wisconsin, Boehler will be responsible for stepping up Manitou's market share growth in North America as well as improving customer service, etc....

Boehler joins the company after 18 months as president of Makinex, the Australian small tools and equipment manufacturer. He is mostly known, however, for his 17 years with Canadian aerial lift and telehandler manufacturer Skyjack, where he progressed from product safety manager to president, a role he held for eight years. He was also president of IPAF and has sat on several company boards, including Vita Inclinata, Compact Equipment/AXCS, Serious Labs and AEM - the Association of Equipment Manufacturers.

Brad Boehler, an engineering graduate, began his working life in 1990, serving two years with the Canadian Army as a planning and then an engineering officer. In 1992, he joined a contractor as a construction supervisor. His equipment manufacturer career kicked off in 1996 when he joined timber processing equipment maker Tigercat as a mechanical designer and then engineering administrator. Seven and a half years later, he was lured into the access industry, joining Skyjack in 2003, as product safety manager over the 16 and a half years, he progressed to director of product safety, vice president of engineering, vice president of marketing and engineering and finally, in 2011, president.
He left the company in 2019 and a few months later was appointed president of forestry equipment manufacturer Morbark, part of the Alamo group, leaving in at the end of 2023 for Makinex.

Manitou said: "We are pleased to introduce Brad Boehler as president of Manitou North America. He brings more than 25 years of outstanding leadership experience in the construction and access industry. Together, we will build a successful future!"

Boehler added: "I am proud and enthusiastic to join the Manitou group and take on this new challenge. We have highly committed employees and two strong value added brands in Gehl and Manitou. I am eager to apply my extensive industry experience with both the sales and industrial teams to make the North American market a powerful growth engine for the group by continually staying closer to our valued customers. I am also looking forward to reconnecting with people in the aerial lift and telehandler industry in the near future."

Vertikal Comment

This looks like a very good and mutually beneficial move for both Manitou and Boehler, Manitou gains a highly experienced manager with a deep knowledge of the key aerial lift and telehandler markets, not to mention wide manufacturing and engineering experience, while Boehler moves back into an industry he loved/loves at a very interesting time.

Manitou has, it seemed at times, struggled to fully integrate its Manitou and Gehl operations in North America following the contested and at times bitter Gehl acquisition in 2008. Boehler’s people skills, confidence and likeability should all play a key role in the leadership of the business.

With the new investment in plant expansion and consolidation, the timing – market conditions excepted - could hardly be better for this move. Time will tell.