Fire Industry Today
by C. Peter Jørgensen
Ann Stawsky, director of communications at Pierce Manufacturing for the last several years, has been named Vice President of Marketing Communications for Oshkosh Truck Corporation, parent company of Pierce. Oshkosh Truck (OSK-NYSE) is one of the country’s largest makers of military vehicles, with diversified subsidiaries worldwide.
Ann replaces Kirsten Skyba who has been appointed Vice President, Global Marketing, for JLG Industries, a materials handling vehicle manufacturer which Oshkosh acquired last year.
Kirsten and Ann are the only communications managers Pierce has had since its acquisition by Oshkosh more than 10 years ago. We will miss sparring with Kirsten, probably the toughest — and smartest — corporate communications director we’ve ever encountered.
Ann is from the same mold, as might be expected since Kirsten hired her. And she brings a wealth of experience and a keen insight to the fire industry in her new position.
She has extensive experience in public relations along with a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin. In addition to serving a stint at an ad agency, she handled public relations for the recreational products division of Bombardier, best known for its Ski-doo line of snow machines, and Evinrude and Johnson outboard motors.
As Marketing Communications vice president for Oshkosh Corp., Ann will still oversee press relations at Pierce, located about 20 miles up the Interstate in Appleton, Wis. Her successor hasn’t been named yet, but Oshkosh Chairman Bob Bohn has made an excellent choice for Kirsten’s replacement.
Kirsten…tough, but we really will miss her. Ann is all business when it comes to representing her company. We’re confident she will be as accessible as Kirsten who was always just a phone call or email away, nights, weekends or whenever something concerning Pierce was brewing.
****
This month American LaFrance will start moving operations into the largest all-new manufacturing plant built specifically to build fire apparatus.
The past 12 years for ALF have been a huge roller coaster ride, but the company has come through a tunnel of darkness to break out into the bright sunshine of June 2007.
It was 1995 when Jim Hebe, then president of Freightliner trucks, a subsidiary of Daimler-Benz of Germany, bought the hollow shell of what had been America’s premier apparatus builder for more than 100 years.
Hebe, and Daimler-Benz, got a warehouse of parts for generations of ALF apparatus and a collection of antique pumpers and ladder trucks. Figgie International, a conglomerate that owned ALF, had taken this old apparatus on tour around the United States for public relations purposes, visiting county fairs and local celebrations.
But Figgie had run into more trouble than having an excess of parts — it had an excess of companies and most of them seemed to be crashing down around the corporation at the same time.
For Figgie it was time to sell off whatever it could, so Hebe, while en route to Wisconsin in the Daimler-Benz-Freightliner corporate jet, decided to stop in Ohio to see if anything might be done about salvaging some part of ALF. (The apparatus maker was where he had taken his first job straight out of college.)
After three hours of negotiations, Hebe scribbled out an offer on a yellow pad, signed it, shook hands with the Figgie people and left as the new owner of American LaFrance. The price: $2.6 million.
The next week the Wall Street Journal ran a story headlined, “Freightliner Buys American Icon.” Telling the story to an invited crowd of dignitaries at the recent dedication of a new museum housing the ALF antique apparatus collection, Hebe was more than candid. He gave those present an inside look at how a worldwide business sometimes functions when millions are mere pocket change.
Soon after the June 12, 1995, Journal story, Hebe got a call from the Daimler-Benz president in Germany, “Vhatt‘iss dis “Icon” u bot, James.” Ahhhhh, a minor detail — Hebe had forgotten to inform Germany of the deal. Hey, $2.6 million is lunch money for the people who make the Mercedes SL600 two door convertible sports car priced at $154,700 (without a GPS).
Not to worry. The next call came from an international auction house (with offices in New York and London) offering Hebe more for the antique apparatus than he paid for the whole company. He didn’t sell.
However, the real work had just begun. Within a year Hebe had launched the completely new American LaFrance Eagle cab and chassis. The basic design lines of that 1996 Eagle are still apparent in the latest 2007 versions.
Hebe and Daimler-Benz went on a buying spree shortly after, acquiring two aerial manufacturers and four pumper makers along with two ambulance companies. In a few short years they changed the face of the American fire apparatus industry.
The antique apparatus is in a new 10,000 sq. ft. museum opened by ALF in April in North Charleston, S. C.
In the 10-plus years of owning the revived American LaFrance, Daimler-Benz never showed a profit from its apparatus manufacturing business. In late 2005 it sold the company to Patriarch Partners, LLC, a New York and Charlotte, N.C., investment company with assets exceeding $5 billon.
Lynn Tilton, CEO and controlling partner in Patriarch, was in her office at 40 Wall Street on September 11, 2001. She saw mass destruction close-up and also watched the heroic efforts of the FDNY for days. The chance to own America’s oldest fire apparatus company was too challenging to pass up.
Tilton, a 40-something dynamic woman with vision and chutzpah, has taken her 25-years’ experience with some of America’s largest investment banking companies and focused Patriarch on turning around companies with past problems. She now owns or controls some 60 entities and has expressed a particular dedication to restoring American LaFrance to top-ranked status among fire apparatus makers.
“No worthwhile journey is short or absent its obstacles…,” she was recently quoted as saying and she is well-aware that competing against Pierce and E-ONE with their corporate backing of Oshkosh Corp. and Federal Signal Corp., respectively, will be no walk in Central Park. But she’s already demonstrated she isn’t easily vanquished by even the largest competitors.
In her first year at the helm of the helicopter company founded by Howard Hughes decades ago, she made sweeping changes resulting in delivery of more helicopters in 2006 than in the two previous years combined. And she’s projecting to more than triple sales in 2007. That company, MDHI of Mesa, Ariz., also added 250 new jobs last year.
Under her leadership, ALF’s new facility — more than 10 acres under one roof — is first class. More importantly, it is designed to build truck chassis with fire apparatus coming off one assembly line while municipal-vocational trucks — the cab over engine Condor series — come off the other line.
Both start out in front of a small port in the factory’s wall where steel for chassis rails comes through and goes directly to the production line.
The plant was designed under supervision of ALF president John Stevenson who has a strong background in truck manufacturing. He formerly was manager of the Freightliner chassis plant in Cleveland, N.C.
The entire production flow plan has been worked out on computer simulation in conjunction with the engineering school at Clemson University.
All steel going down the chassis assembly line is pre-treated and primed for paint. Each stage of production will be displayed on 42-inch video monitors so workers and visitors can see a 3D modeling of what’s taking place and how things fit together along each part of the line.
The Condor commercial chassis is a sleeper in the whole picture and could be the key to long-term success. High volume sales to companies building bodies for municipal and trade uses, such as refuse, utility and cement trucks and short haulers, mean steady income from a quickly built product.
The Condor chassis is now being offered in a four-door version for an economy fire apparatus model as well. It will be competing for sales with the Freightliner M2, Sterling, International and Kenworth commercial chassis often used by both American LaFrance and a myriad of other apparatus manufacturers.
In a 57,000-square-foot separate building adjacent to the new plant ALF is constructing a two-story Customer Center with four delivery bays, eight conference rooms, a training and seminar center and a showroom.
The whole area is being designed in a 1920s motif with the flavor of an old-fashioned firehouse and even includes a hose tower. Wide oak plank flooring, a 1917 fire pole from a Chicago firehouse, period wall murals and a rotating display of antique apparatus from the company’s museum collection will enhance the theme.
ALF President Stevenson points out that more than 10,000 square feet is being devoted to the Customer Center while the rest of the building houses engineering and research facilities, corporate offices, sales and administration.
Both new buildings show a handsome red brick façade and overlook Interstate 26 in Summerville, S.C., a suburb of Charleston. The entire site will be finished with a campus-type layout taking advantage of natural water flows to create a pond, stream and a large landscaped area setting ALF off from the nearby industrial park.
Taken together, the new plant, new owner and new atmosphere say that American LaFrance, celebrating its 175th anniversary this year, is positioned to quickly increase its market share in a short time. ALF is definitely on a fast track for the first time since the mid-1990s.
Grand opening of the new facilities is set for August, just before the International Association of Fire Chiefs annual convention in Atlanta, Ga.
