Manitex International, Inc., an international provider of truck cranes, specialized industrial equipment and construction equipment rental solutions, announced Richard Mills has been named President, Manitex North America. He will assume oversight of all North American manufacturing and new product distribution operations for Manitex.

Mills comes to Manitex with 30 years of experience in manufacturing and executive leadership with an emphasis in the OEM specialty equipment and vocational vehicle sectors. He is a degreed engineer with continued education in production engineering, lean manufacturing and six sigma. Prior to joining Manitex, Mills held the role of Vice President and Division Chief Operating Officer of the specialty rail and utility vehicle division at Progress Rail (Caterpillar). He also held key leadership positions at JCB, Trinity and Heil, manufacturing heavy construction equipment and specialty highway vocational trucks.

Michael Coffey, Manitex's Chief Executive Officer, said, "The re-alignment of our North American operations is correlated with the changes we had already established in Italy, whereas we are bringing the regional groups under one leader and then uniting our focus as a company toward a more unified purpose, common strategy and increased levels of collaboration. We are focused on improving operational excellence and customer support, while improving production velocities, profitability and cashflows. Richard's experience is well suited to help us achieve these goals.”

"The organizational changes we are making are correlated with the demand-driven backlog that we continue to experience, and support our global productivity and margin objectives. We continue to allocate the resources required for the sale, service, and support of our entire global product portfolio, and we anticipate Richard will be instrumental in helping us achieve the proliferation of our knuckleboom cranes, industrial cranes, and aerial work platforms throughout North America," concluded Coffey.

Manitex International’s brands include Manitex, PM, MAC, Oil & Steel, Valla and Rabern Rentals.