GEDA's Johann Sailer elected to VDMA post

Johann Sailer, managing director of GEDA-Dechentreiter, was unanimously elected as chairman of the VDMA's Construction Equipment and Building Material Machinery Association at its annual assembly in Bremen last week.

Mr Sailer, 50, who has been a board member since 1999 and will serve a three year term, will also act as president of the Committee for European Construction Equipment (CECE) from 1 January 2012 onwards.

He said it was important to have strong representation of the German industry to help secure the country as a manufacturing location on the European market and give a voice to small and medium sized companies.

His own company GEDA, a manufacturer of construction hoists and mast climbing work platforms, is an example of such firms.

He said a focal point of his work would be cooperation between VDMA and CECE; "We aim to leverage the benefits of this dual presidency and pool forces to optimise the cooperation of the two associations, also structurally in the interest of the industry".

Mr Sailer succeeds Dr Christof Kemmann, managing director of BHS Sonthofen GmbH, who stood down after chairing the association for seven and a half years.

In his new post Mr Sailer will speak on behalf of the 300 members of the VDMA's construction equipment and building materials machinery division, many of which are small and medium sized companies. Together, these members generated sales of €10.6 billion in 2010.