February 14, 2019 – Beckhoff Automation announced that Kevin Barker has been appointed the president of Beckhoff Automation LLC to manage Beckhoff business operations across the US. Barker takes over the leadership role that Aurelio Banda has held for four years.
As the new president, Barker will oversee all sales, engineering, marketing and administrative operations from the headquarters of Beckhoff Automation LLC in Savage, Minn. (Minneapolis area). This location also houses the main technical support hub and warehouse for Beckhoff customers in the US. Prior to joining Beckhoff, Barker worked at Yaskawa America, Inc. as the director of sales in the company’s motion division.
Over an eight-year tenure at Yaskawa, Barker led multi-national sales teams with the responsibility to develop complex industrial markets, large sales channels and advanced motion control offerings, including the company’s lineup of EtherCAT servo drives. Barker, who earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Illinois Wesleyan University, also held director-level positions at Mitsubishi Electric Automation and Omron Electronics earlier in his career.
According to Barker, the prospects for developing the market in general automation technology and a rapidly evolving portfolio of motion control solutions were major factors in his decision to join Beckhoff Automation and lead the subsidiary into a new era.
Barker succeeds Aurelio Banda who has served as CEO and president of Beckhoff in North America for four years and guided the company to consecutive double-digit profit growth. Banda was a driving force behind the Beckhoff growth across the US, Canada and Mexico. During his tenure, Beckhoff became an automation partner for many Fortune 500 companies across numerous industries, such as packaging, entertainment, semiconductors, metal cutting and material handling/logistics.
