Lightning eMotors Appoints McNeil to Lead Lightning Energy Division, Names Barron as Head of Manufacturing
Lightning eMotors Appoints McNeil to Lead Lightning Energy Division, Names Barron as Head of Manufacturing
Loveland, Colo., June 8, 2021 – Lightning eMotors, a leading provider of commercial zero-emission vehicles for fleets, has named a new head of its Lightning Energy division and a new vice president of global manufacturing.
Brandon McNeil has been appointed vice president of Lightning Energy, reporting to Kash Sethi, chief revenue officer. In this newly created role, McNeil will lead the company’s Lightning Energy division, which provides customers with charging infrastructure products and services.
McNeil has been with Lightning for the past two and a half years, overseeing operations for supply chain, production, vehicle installation and service for Lightning. Prior to joining the company, he served as executive vice president of operations and manufacturing for Ice Energy, a California-based energy-storage company.
“We would like to thank Brandon for his tremendous efforts building and leading the manufacturing, quality and service operations for the past years that ultimately allowed us to achieve our incredible results in the first quarter of this year,” Sethi said. “Brandon’s unrelenting determination, perseverance and broad understanding of our business make him the ideal candidate to lead our fast-growing Lightning Energy business.”
Brandon McNeil
Brian Barron will join Lightning eMotors as the company’s new vice president of global manufacturing, reporting to Tim Reeser, CEO, Lightning eMotors. In this role, Barron will be tasked with continuing to scale the company’s manufacturing operations to enable Lightning eMotors to achieve its aggressive growth trajectory. Barron, who takes over for McNeil, will lead all production operations, including advanced manufacturing, production planning and vehicle assembly.
Brian Barron
“Brian brings with him a wealth of operations experiences, most recently as the site and plant manager for Itron in South Carolina, over 19 years of quality, assembly and operations management experience with BMW in South Carolina, as well as experience leading manufacturing for startups such as Lucid, NIMR and Vector Launch,” Reeser said.
“These changes position us to execute on our ultra-fast growth and expansion plans, and ensure we can grow at the pace our customers are pulling, while providing them world-class, full-service solutions,” Reeser said. “We congratulate Brandon on his new role and welcome Brian to the Lightning family. Kash and I look forward to seeing the impact of their leadership and experience.”
Lightning eMotors is the only electric commercial vehicle manufacturer to sell and deliver zero-emission vehicles (ZEV) in Class 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, including passenger vans, ambulances, shuttle buses, last-mile delivery vans, box trucks, and motor coaches for customers in parcel and delivery, micro transit, airport parking operations, electric utilities and other industries.
Lightning Energy designs, installs, services, and manages charging solutions, providing fleets with turnkey options to support fleet electrification and help stakeholders achieve their sustainability goals. As a part of Lightning eMotors, Lightning Energy offers a full range of purchased or leased charging stations and, optionally, full charging as a service (CaaS). CaaS includes infrastructure installation, permitting, utilities liaison, maintenance, and ongoing management software, and regulatory credit monetization, to operate small, medium or large fleets of electric vehicles.
On May 7, Lightning eMotors began trading its common stock on NYSE under the new symbol “ZEV.”
About Lightning eMotors
Lightning eMotors has been providing specialized and sustainable fleet solutions since 2009, deploying complete zero-emission-vehicle (ZEV) solutions for commercial fleets since 2018 – including Class 3 cargo and passenger vans, Class 4 and 5 cargo vans and shuttle buses, Class 6 work trucks, school buses, Class 7 city buses, and Class A motor coaches. The Lightning eMotors’ team designs, engineers, customizes, and manufactures zero-emission vehicles to support the wide array of fleet customer needs including school buses and ambulances, with a full suite of control software, telematics, analytics, and charging solutions to simplify the buying and ownership experience and maximize uptime and energy efficiency. Lightning eMotors also offers charging technologies and “Charging as a Service” (CaaS) to commercial and government fleets via its Lightning Energy division. To learn more, visit https://lightningmotors.nerdstaging.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of U.S. federal securities laws. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the objectives of Lightning Motors’ expanded management team, its product and customer developments, its expectations, hopes, beliefs, intentions, plans, prospects or strategies regarding the future revenues and expenses and the business plans of Lightning eMotors’ management team. Any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. In addition, any statements that refer to projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward-looking statements. The words “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intends,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “possible,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “would” and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on certain assumptions and analyses made by the management of Lightning eMotors in light of their respective experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments and their potential effects on Lightning eMotors as well as other factors they believe are appropriate in the circumstances. There can be no assurance that future developments affecting Lightning eMotors will be those anticipated. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties (some of which are beyond the control of the parties) or other assumptions that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: (i) the ability to maintain the listing of Lightning eMotors’ securities on a national securities exchange, (ii) the price of Lightning eMotors’ securities may be volatile due to a variety of factors, including changes in the competitive industries in which Lightning eMotors operates, variations in operating performance across competitors, changes in laws and regulations affecting Lightning eMotors’ business and changes in the combined capital structure, (iii) that Lightning eMotors will have sufficient capital to operate as anticipated, and (iv) the impact that the novel coronavirus and the illness, COVID-19, that it causes, as well as governmental responses to deal with the spread of this illness and the reopening of economies that have been closed as part of these responses, may have on Lightning eMotors’ operations, the demand for Lightning eMotors’ products, global supply chains and economic activity in general. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize or should any of the assumptions being made prove incorrect, actual results may vary in material respects from those projected in these forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.
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