John Lanning, Manitowoc’s senior vice president of application engineering, has been given a key role to maximise the benefits of the Potain acquisition.
Lanning has moved to France, where he will be based at Potain’s self-erecting crane factory in Charlieu with a brief to provide technical liaison between the two companies.
Specifically, he has been instructed to facilitate the manufacturing of Potain tower cranes in the USA and Manitowoc crawler and truck-mounted cranes in Europe. He is also responsible for helping each company to adopt the best practices of the other and for promoting cultural understanding between employees in the USA and France.
Lanning has been with Manitowoc for 16 years, initially working on telescopic boom cranes and the Manitex line of boom trucks and then as vice president of engineering, in which role he oversaw the development of the EPIC line of electronically controlled, hydraulically driven cranes, starting with the M-250.
Prior to joining Manitowoc he had worked for P&H and Link-Belt.