Kobelco Construction Machinery USA opens new North American headquarters in Houston

May 24, 2013 – Kobelco Construction Machinery USA has announced the opening
of its new North American headquarters in Houston, Texas.  Following the
termination of a 10-year agreement with CNH in late December, Kobelco
excavators will once again be directly marketed by the company in the United
States and Canada, bringing back the tried and true Kobelco products that drove
the company’s early success.

Since the start of 2013, Kobelco executives have been diligently working to
re-establish a presence in North America, starting with the acquisition of
their new location in Houston.  The centrally located facility at 4690
World Houston Parkway will serve as a temporary home base for the company
while a custom headquarters and manufacturing facility is built nearby. A
comprehensive parts inventory will be on hand at this location, with equipment
being stored near the Port of Galveston, Texas, as well as several other
strategically located ports around the country.

Kobelco has long been known for its quality line of excavators in the 3,000 to 180,000 lb. classes. By focusing on a single line of equipment, the company
has become known as excavator specialists. While some companies manufacture
multiple lines of equipment, Kobelco dedicates their research and development
dollars to improving and enhancing their singular product line, ensuring they
deliver excavators that can withstand the day-to-day rigors of demanding
jobsites, while providing operators with all the production and comfort
features required for a profitable days work.

Bringing back the Kobelco tradition to North America meant more than simply
bringing the products back to market. The company wanted to reaffirm a
leadership team driven by the same passion that Kobelco’s management team prior
to the CNH agreement was notorious for. Leading the new Kobelco team is Katsuhiko
Morita as president and CEO and past Kobelco employees Ron Hargrave as vice-president of sales and marketing, George Lumpkins as product marketing
manager and Eric Hoffman as national parts manager.  Additional employees
have all been carefully selected based on their industry experience to ensure
that all personnel will be able to deliver on Kobelco’s promise of customer
satisfaction.

Establishing a solid dealer network has proven to be a very small challenge for
the company.

“Once dealers learned that Kobelco would be directly marketed
again in North America, the phone started ringing,” said Ron Hargrave. “The
level of enthusiasm from past, current and prospective dealers has been
unprecedented. One of the biggest challenges for many manufacturers today is building and maintaining a dealer network. The quality of Kobelco’s
products and services has stood the test of time, which helped us to quickly
secure stocking orders to have inventory in dealer yards in time for the spring
2013 selling season.”

With many customers already familiar with the Kobelco brand, the company is
confident their new found independence will result in considerable growth
throughout North America.

“We are committed to manufacturing quality equipment
and pricing it aggressively for today’s competitive marketplace,” states Katsuhiko Morita. “With a full
network of established dealers behind us, we will be in a solid position to
gain market share fairly quickly.”

Related Link
http://www.kobelco-usa.com/index2.html