Kenworth’s Bob Christensen sailing confidently into company’s future

Bob Christensen stands in front of a W900 outside company headquarters. (Courtesy Kenworth Truck Co.)

By LYNDON FINNEY
The Trucker Staff

10/10/2007

Yes, they may be separated by some 520 years and thousands of miles, but both would be considered visionaries by any standard as both rose to the top of the field in their chosen professions.

They were and are involved in the movement of commerce, Columbus locating new trade routes for Spain and in doing so discovering America, Christensen is general manager of Kenworth Truck Co. and vice president of PACCAR, of which Kenworth is a division.

They were and are customer-oriented: Columbus sailing on behalf of the leaders of Spain, Christensen always looking to the end user, the world’s truck drivers, for new ideas.

Both view those who work with them [at all levels] as key players in successful ventures.

It was one of the famed explorer’s men, not Columbus himself, who first spotted land that later became known as the New World early one morning.

And Christensen says, “one guy can’t do it all and a lot of people are a lot smarter than Bob.”

He’s also quick to point out those “lot of people” and himself have formed cohesive team that produces what he and the his co-workers proudly proclaim are “The World’s Best” trucks.

 “We build the most aerodynamic trucks, the most fuel efficient truck in the industry,” Christensen said recently in an interview with The Trucker at company headquarters here. “We’re introducing hybrid medium-duty vehicles to limit emissions and improve fuel efficiency. We’re a leader in alternative fuel in Southern California.

“Kenworth Clean Power is an environmentally conscious product. Our products are lighter, but they’re also stronger so they can carry more payload, so freight moves more efficiently. Our trucks last longer. Those are all things that contribute to the well-being of our environment.

“We’re a leader in the vocational market with products that help build the nation’s infrastructure, that build our buildings, and build roads. Our products are used to actually build the things that are important to people every day with arguably the least environmental impact of any OEM today.”

Christensen speaks like a man who’s been engrossed in trucking all his life, and in reality his primary association with trucking before he went to work for Kenworth was driving a gravel truck during the summer while he was attending college.

“My job as a guy from the summer hire list was to haul gravel in the smallest, dirtiest truck at the end of the line,” he recalled.

A native of the Pacific Northwest, Christensen graduated from the University of Washington and went to work for Boeing, earning his master’s while employed there.

One day he saw an ad in the newspaper for Kenworth [recruiters say your chances of finding an outstanding job through a newspaper ad is a very, very rare occurrence] and applied.

He started at Kenworth’s Seattle plant in the controller’s office and eventually became the controller. He went to PACCAR Parts in 1990, still in a finance function at first. Shortly afterwards, however, he moved over to the operating side, was responsible for aftermarket parts distribution facilities around the country and was involved in a lot of systems development activities.

Later, he became responsible for the sales and marketing functions and was Bill Jackson’s [recently named GM at Peterbilt, another PACCAR division] predecessor as general manager of PACCAR Parts.

“That was a very exciting time, because the company had purchased DAF in 1996 and we really started to move PACCAR Parts into a worldwide organization,” Christensen said. “That presented the opportunity to spend time in Europe and understand who those manufacturers are and how that market works and what those products represent.”

Then in 2002, he was asked to move back to Kenworth as the general manager.

He didn’t even hesitate.

“I was just so excited to run arguably the best brand in the industry,” he said. “I started with Kenworth. Loved the product. There was no question. Absolutely no question. I was pretty well prepared for it based on my prior experience in manufacturing, then in the aftermarket and really understanding the dealer’s side. That put me in a position to hit the ground running.”

He believes that today Kenworth, just as it was back in 1983, is on top of its game.

“The way to characterize it is that we are a very results-driven company and, fundamentally, it’s building the best truck and providing the diversity our customer base needs,” he said. “If you look at our product line, we’re in every segment of this business. We are heavy into the vocational business. We’re heavy into the pickup and delivery market. We’re very much a part of the over-the-road business. The challenge that Kenworth faces is not unlike what others in our business face and that is just the sheer complexity of managing product change through such product diversity.

“That was really the challenge at the time and it is still the challenge today: trying to make certain that we don’t lose, with the complexity of the vehicle, the significant customer advantage we provide to a large company, a small company, a dump-truck operator or an over-the- road customer.”

Customer, customer, customer.

Three key words in Christensen’s vocabulary.

He makes frequent use of the company’s contact with its most visible external customer — the men and women who drive Kenworth trucks — through the company’s 500-member Drivers’ Board, formed in 1992.

“We meet with our Drivers’ Board throughout the year, the most notable time being at the Mid-America Trucking Show,” Christensen said. “During the show we have a special session where we have some topics and they may have some topics and they’re generally really good sessions.”

In addition, Preston Feight, Kenworth’s director of product planning, has championed a new organization to define Kenworth’s future product plan.

“The engineers are sometimes tied up in the projects that they’re doing today. The marketing and sales people are often focused on the business of today,” Christensen said. “And often times we lose sight of where we can be tomorrow. And so Preston is leading the group and we’ve broken his function into basically three topic areas: one is over-the-road, the second is the vocational market; and the third the pickup and del