In order to drive further technical improvements and leverage on synergies in the global technical setup, STARCO and Kenda are combining the two technical teams in Europe.
Integration of Technical Teams for STARCO and Kenda in Europe
This is a step in Kenda’s significant investments in research and development in technical setup in Europe and both companies’ European growth plans.
Since Kenda acquired STARCO in 2017, the level of collaboration between technical teams in Europe and the US has grown. Now the companies are joining forces and combine technical resources into one organisation.
“This follows in the successful strategy that Kenda has followed in the US by heavily investing in Kenda America Technical Centre in Akron,” explains Richard Todd, who visited the centre last week. He continues, “The set up in Europe will be integrated and reinforced, with significant investment in personnel and equipment planned over the coming years.”
The new European team will be 14 employees and in total. Kenda has over 250 technical team members globally and this is expected to grow to 300 before 2022.
STARCO’s technical Director, Mike Green, and his team will report to the Kenda Europe organisation led by Frits van der Steege, Kenda’s European Technical Director located in STARCO’s Winsen office.
“We have no plans to make any employees redundant. The plans are actually to recruit additional engineers to our team to improve capabilities and resources to support growing our business,” says Frits van der Steege, Technical Director, Kenda Europe.
