Malcolm Pfrunder has been appointed general manager of crane company James Equipment. This was announced by Peter O’Shannessey, chief operating officer of Boom Logistics. Prior to joining James Equipment, Pfrunder held the position of national sales manager, Australia and South Pacific, for Genie Industries, a division of Terex. Previously, he held leadership positions within the ANZ and Commonwealth banks in his role liaising between the bank and its commercial customers.

“The crane industry is closely related to the materials handling focus of Genie Industries,” Pfrunder said upon his appointment. “At Genie we sold a diversified range of materials handling products such as scissor lifts, boom lifts, telehandlers and so on. Moving to the crane industry is a natural extension.”

Pfrunder believes there is a lot of upside to the opportunities that lie ahead for the 15-year old company. "The Tadano brand that we distribute is a world class crane, which has been roundly embraced by the Australian market. I am particularly excited about transferring our strong reputation in truck cranes into the all terrain crane market with the exceptional Tadano Faun product,” he said.

“Also, we are growing with the Sany brand of crawler cranes and see great future prospects. The repeat business that we are seeing with the Sany crawler cranes is a testament to the product,” added Pfrunder. “The opportunity that lies ahead is to further build James Equipment as a sales and service focussed crane business. There will be future expansion as and where the market determines.”

The position of general manager at James Equipment was previously held by Peter Shelton who resigned the position some time ago. Mark Taylor took up the GM position in an acting capacity and has subsequently returned to his position as commercial manager reporting to Pfrunder. David White continues as national sales manager. The service side of the business is lead by Nathan Regester based in Brisbane together with Dave Edgar who heads up the WA operations.