Kobelco hosts ribbon-cutting ceremony
Kobelco Construction Machinery USA recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at its new Houston, Texas-based North American headquarters following the relaunch of the brand as an independent product line earlier this year.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on July 9 at 4690 World Houston Parkway. The event was well attended, with nearly all of Kobelco’s recently signed dealers represented, a host of local and national media and several local officials, as well as Kobelco staff members from all over the world.
Kobelco’s new Houston facility has brought a multitude of jobs and revenue to the local economy. “Houston provided the perfect centralized location to relaunch the brand and to support and service customers and dealers throughout the United States and Canada,” said Ron Hargrave, vice president of marketing and sales for Kobelco North America. “The local community has been receptive and rather excited to have Kobelco back in town after having been a part of the CNH organization for 10 years. And, there were several prior Kobelco employees still in the area who we’ve recruited back. This has really helped us to hit the ground running. In just a few short months, we’ve opened our headquarters, signed 40-plus dealers, stocked our parts warehouse, hired a full staff of experienced equipment industry professionals, and brought product over from Japan, stocking dealer yards in time for the Spring/Summer 2013 selling season.”
The ribbon-cutting ceremony kicked off with speeches from Kobelco management, which outlined the company’s aggressive growth goals and thanked local officials for their support, employees for their initial hard work, and the media for their coverage of the brand’s rebirth. Following the official cutting of the ribbon, attendees had the opportunity to walk around and kick the tires of a wide range of Kobelco excavators on display and to take a tour of the company’s offices and parts facility. Following the tours, all attendees were treated to a Texas-style catered lunch.
Kobelco Construction Machinery USA produces a full range of crawler excavators in the 3,000- to 180,000-pound classes for the rental, landscape, construction, aggregate, road-building, material handling, site preparation, recycling and ancillary markets, including zero-tail-swing, standard, long-reach and compact models.
