“George has been involved in every aspect of our business,” said Jack Fendrick, COO and Vice President of KOBELCO USA. “From sales, service, engineering, marketing, product development, and production, George’s fingerprints are on all of our successes. His leadership, work ethic, integrity, and passion for the industry have been instrumental in helping to grow the KOBELCO brand in the North American and Latin American markets.”
Lumpkins has served in his current role at KOBELCO since 2013, but over a 12-year period earlier in his career, where his first trip to KOBELCO/Yutani was in 1985, he served as a Product and Service Manager, Sales Application Engineer, and a Sales and Service Training Manager for KOBELCO. During his combined time with the company, Lumpkins completed 77 trips to Japan, 15 trips to China, and several trips to Europe, Latin America, and Asia to help develop many of the technologies that make today’s KOBELCO excavators efficient and powerful machines. He also led excavator service, quality, safety, and sales trainings for dealers, customers, and manufacturing teams.
“The KOBELCO USA team is sad to see George move into retirement, but we are grateful to have had the opportunity to work with him. Thank you, George, for your invaluable guidance and extraordinary contributions to KOBELCO over the years,” Fendrick said.
Lumpkins graduated with an industrial distribution degree from Texas A&M University and began his career in 1975 with the Bucyrus-Erie Company. There, he gained experience in service and service training, sales, and quality control. He lived on a customer jobsite for a one-year field study of a prototype excavator during development, and later became the crane, excavator, and dragline, machine erector, and sales demonstrator. It was these early years that equipped Lumpkins with the knowledge and understanding to write numerous installation and special procedures manuals for both sales and service-related projects throughout his career.
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Lumpkins went on to hold several senior-level management positions with companies such as Mitsubishi, LiuGong, and Case New Holland, in addition to KOBELCO. He was entrenched in design and engineering support, product development of excavators and attachments, and registered U.S. patents on motor grader and dozer control systems currently in use. Lumpkins also served on design teams for the evaluation and development of loaders, motor graders, dozers, skid steer loaders, articulated haulers and more, but his first love continued to be KOBELCO excavators.
KOBELCO will divide Lumpkins’ duties among a team of qualified employees. The transitions include: Dan Collins, Product Marketing Manager and Senior Warranty Manager; Dave Donneral, Assistant Product Marketing Manager; Todd Dohnal, Sales Training Manager; and Brittany Swales, Warranty Manager. Lumpkins will continue to serve as a consultant to KOBELCO through December 2020.
“The employees on this new team share the same passion for the industry as George does. They will stand on the foundation that George built at KOBELCO, continue to develop new solutions and innovations for increased productivity and efficiency, and deliver superior sales, service, and product support to KOBELCO dealers and customers,” Fendrick said.
