Skip to main content

Caterpillar France’s Eric Lepine takes over CECE presidency

Eric Lepine, general manager of Caterpillar France SAS in Grenoble, has taken over the presidency of the Committee for European Construction Equipment (CECE). Lepine replaced Johann Sailer on January 1 2014 and will serve as CECE president over the next two years. The official handover from Sailer, who himself chaired the association for two years, took place in Paris in December on the occasion of the last CECE-Steering Group meeting of the year. During his 26 years of experience in the industry, Lepin
January 15, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
Eric Lepine (left) took over the presidency from Johann Sailer (right). Pic courtesy of CECE
Eric Lepine, general manager of 178 Caterpillar France SAS in Grenoble, has taken over the presidency of the 2440 Committee for European Construction Equipment (CECE).

Lepine replaced Johann Sailer on January 1 2014 and will serve as CECE president over the next two years.

The official handover from Sailer, who himself chaired the association for two years, took place in Paris in December on the occasion of the last CECE-Steering Group meeting of the year.

During his 26 years of experience in the industry, Lepine has held various important positions at Caterpillar in countries such as Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Russia, USA and UK before taking over the responsibility in Grenoble, southeastern France.

Lepine’s main goal for his presidency will be to ensure the implementation of the 10 Points listed in the CECE-CEMA Industry Manifesto, which was presented during the 2013 CECE summit in Brussels to the members of the European Parliament and the 2465 European Commission. Lepine believes that CECE should focus on three main priorities during his presidency:  achieving a harmonisation of road safety requirements for non-road mobile machinery within Europe; ensuring that industry’s needs are duly taken into account within the current revision of the exhaust emission legislation; and maintaining efforts to secure the final approval of the market surveillance legislation review, currently stuck at the European Council level. Lepine says the CECE will continue and step up dialogue with decision makers in Brussels at all levels. “We will keep on promoting the idea of fair competition and free trade for all market players in Europe. What we have to avoid is non-needed complexity in laws and regulations.”

Lepine’s deputy chairmen for the next two years are Christian Stryffeler, executive vice-president for the machine segment of 6791 Ammann AG and Giampiero Biglia, business director at CNH Industrial. The new CECE president is chief spokesman of 1,200 mainly medium-sized European construction equipment manufacturers from 14 countries. They are members of CECE via their national associations. The European construction equipment industry achieves a turnover of 25 billion Euros and employs 130,000 people.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Caterpillar is looking forward to future growth in China
    January 6, 2017
    Caterpillar is taking a long term view in China, seeing the country as having immense potential for construction. The company has a large presence at bauma China, with its display focussing on equipment crucial to the Chinese market and this reflects its long experience in the country, having commenced operations in the early 1970s. Speaking at the firm’s bauma China press conference, Ed Rapp, Caterpillar Group President Construction Industry said, “Our display is about our long term position in China. Ther
  • Caterpillar is looking forward to future growth in China
    November 27, 2012
    Caterpillar is taking a long term view in China, seeing the country as having immense potential for construction. The company has a large presence at bauma China, with its display focussing on equipment crucial to the Chinese market and this reflects its long experience in the country, having commenced operations in the early 1970s. Speaking at the firm’s bauma China press conference, Ed Rapp, Caterpillar Group President Construction Industry said, “Our display is about our long term position in China. Ther
  • New Eurobitume executive officers elected
    May 7, 2019
    Eurobitume now has a new president and vice president, following the organisation’s recent Spring Meeting held in Brussels. Markus Spiegl from OMV was elected Eurobitume president while Frédérique Cointe from ExxonMobil was appointed vice president. In addition, Keith Stone from Shell was re-elected treasurer. The trio say that they will help drive the continued development of Eurobitume as the first reference for bitumen in Europe, and also champion the efficient, effective and safe use of refined bitume
  • US construction machine exports remain low
    September 1, 2016
    According to the US-based Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM), exports of machines from the US remain at a low level. The AEM’s analysis shows that exports of US-made construction equipment were down 24% overall at midyear 2016 compared to the first half of 2015. In all machines worth US$5.65 billion were shipped to global markets.