eyes on the East

Tiny New Bremen, Ohio, might seem an unlikely place to hatch a plot for world domination. But it's pretty clear that's what executives at Crown Equipment Corp.'s New Bremen headquarters have been up to. Crown already has operations in the United States, Australia, England, Germany, and Mexico. Now it's taking on China.

Earlier this year, the company opened a new lift truck manufacturing facility and sales operation in Suzhou, China. In its official announcement, Crown cites service, not world domination, as its motivation for building in China."Many of our global customers are already located in China or making plans to open operations," says Crown President Jim Dicke III. "Providing service support for these existing customers in China is very important to our company."

Dicke says Crown chose the Suzhou New District, a high-tech industrial park, based on the area's economic climate. "Suzhou will provide us an opportunity to develop talent so that we can build equipment and develop our service teams to meet the requirements of our global customers," he says."We have been extremely impressed with the talent of the employees hired in China and the quality of suppliers supporting Crown."