INDUSTRY NEWS Oberhelman To Succeed Owens As Cat CEO
6 DIESEL PROGRESS NORTH AMERICAN EDITION November 2009
Caterpillar Inc. has announc- ed that its board of directors has elected Douglas R. Oberhelman to the offices of vice chairman and chief executive officer- elect, effective Jan. 1, 2010. Oberhel- man, 56, currently serves as group president of Caterpillar with responsi- bility for the company’s engine and gas turbine businesses, human services, rail services and remanufacturing divisions. As vice chairman and chief executive officer-elect, Oberhelman will take on the additional responsibili- ties of managing the leadership transi- tion and updating the company’s strat- egy, Cat said. Cat said announcing the succession plan at this time allows Oberhelman to concentrate on “aligning resources for the future and defining critical suc- cess factors for Caterpillar’s leader- ship going forward.” He will serve as vice chairman and chief executive officer-elect until the June 2010 Caterpillar board of directors meeting, at which time he will be elected chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors, succeeding James W. Owens, 63. Owens will continue to serve as chairman of the board and chief exec- utive officer until July 1, 2010. He will remain chairman of the board through Oct. 31, 2010, when he will retire in accordance with the company’s long- standing mandatory retirement policy and be succeeded by Oberhelman at that time. “Jim informed us in 2008 that he was planning to retire in the fall of 2010 and has worked extensively with the governance committee and the board of directors over the last 12 months to develop a succession plan to smoothly transition the company into its next phase of executive lead- ership and to align the transition with the company’s annual and long-term strategic planning cycles,” said W. Frank Blount, presiding director and chairman of the governance commit- tee of Caterpillar’s board of directors. Oberhelman joined Caterpillar in 1975 in the corporate treasury depart- ment and has held a variety of posi- tions, including senior finance repre- sentative based in South America for Caterpillar Americas Co.; region finance manager and district manager for the company’s North American Commercial Division; and managing director and vice general manager for strategic planning at Shin Caterpillar Mitsubishi Ltd. in Tokyo, Japan. He was elected a vice president in 1995, serving as Caterpillar’s chief financial officer with administrative responsibility for the corporation’s accounting, information services, tax, treasury, investor relations and mar- keting support services areas from 1995 to November 1998. He then became vice president with responsi- Caterpillar Inc. has announced that Douglas R Oberhelman (left) has been named vice chairman and CEO-elect, effec- tive Jan. 1, 2010. Oberhelman is expected to succeed Cat's current chairman James W. Owens at the end of October, 2010.
