The increased size of the sales department is in parallel with the company’s addition of new machine tool brands such as the world leading series of Kitamura high performance machining centres, the Hanwha brand of sliding-head turning centres and Cobots, plus, most recently, the announcement travelling-column machines from Ibarmia will also now be available from Dugard.
To support the sales function of these new brands in the South West and Wales region, Dugard has employed Peter Tilsed as the new area sales manager. Joining the company in March, Tilsed’s appointment rapidly follows the appointment of Kevin Searl, the new area sales manager for the East Anglia and Home Counties region.
With 40 years in manufacturing, Searl’s career started as an apprentice toolmaker in 1980, where he progressed through the machine shop before working as a production engineer at Marconi Aerospace. Since the 1990s, he has spent his career as a consultant, an area sales manager and product manager for some of the most prestigious brands in the machine tool, cutting tool and ancillary equipment market segments. Much of Searl’s expertise has been earned in the South East, East Midlands and Home Counties areas, which gives the experienced engineer a unique insight into the demands of the local industry, with regards to target markets, trends and the regions ‘key’ manufacturers.
Similarly, Tilsed is another experienced engineer, having more than 20 years of field sales expertise. He started his career in a subcontract machine shop in the early 1980s, progressing from the shop floor into production engineering and management roles. In the late 1990s, Tilsed switched career paths and focus to cutting tool sales. For more than 20 years, he has been a successful cutting tool field sales engineer for some of the world’s most prestigious cutting tool brands. The combination of Tilsed’s machine shop experience, cutting tool expertise and also his extensive knowledge of the machine tool and subcontract manufacturing industry in the South West and Wales regions, gives him the platform to help Dugard grow its presence in the area.
The pair are the fifth and sixth new arrivals at Dugard in the last 18 months, following the appointment of Colin Thompson, who has just been promoted to a sales director role and four new area sales managers, with Gerald Coyle, Mark Anson and John Brimblecome now successfully managing and enhancing the Dugard brand from Scotland, the North East and West, East Anglia and the Home Counties, the Midlands and now the South West and Wales.
Commenting on this expansion, Dugard managing director Eric Dugard says: “We have added world-class brands to our portfolio and the sales of these high quality machines will rest firmly upon the shoulders of our new team. The management team at Dugard is confident that our new sales engineers have the right blend of industry expertise and local market insight to really drive the advantages of the Dugard brand into manufacturing facilities the length and breadth of the UK.”
