Crane rental specialist Essex Rental Corp. has hired construction equipment industry veteran Marc Dowdell as chief operating officer, the company announced. Dowdell brings about 20 years of experience in executive, marketing and operational roles to the Essex job. Before joining Essex, Dowdell was president of LiuGong North America, a wholly owned subsidiary of Guangxi LiuGong, a global manufacturer of earth moving and lifting equipment.
Before joining LiuGong, Dowdell was vice president of Dean Machinery, a Caterpillar dealer, and was also a partner and franchise owner of a Volvo Rents Construction Equipment store.
The COO role had been vacant for Essex since March 2014 when Nick Matthews, former COO, was promoted to CEO.
“We are very pleased to add an executive with Marc’s level of experience to our senior management team,” said Nick Matthews, Essex CEO. “In the role of COO, Marc will be primarily focused on refining our existing performance metrics to enhance our profitability, monitoring fleet data to optimize our asset utilization and growing revenues across all lines of business.”
“Driving execution of operational and target market strategies measured by key performance indicators and dashboard metrics will be a priority in improving the company’s operating performance,” added Dowdell. “I look forward to continuing the development of a more customer-centric culture and meeting with Essex’s customers and other stakeholders over the coming months.”
Essex Rental Corp., based in Buffalo Grove, Ill., is No. 52 on the RER 100.
