Exide Technologies Appoints Timothy Yost Vice President of Communications
28 December 2000
Exide Technologies Appoints Timothy Yost Vice President of Communications
PRINCETON, N.J., Dec. 28 Exide Technologies ,
the global leader in providing electrical-energy storage solutions, today
announced the appointment of Timothy L. Yost as Vice President of
Communications.
"We're extremely pleased to have Tim Yost join our leadership team at
Exide Technologies," said Robert A. Lutz, Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer. "With Exide's recent acquisition of GNB Technologies, our company is
now both much bigger and more complex, and now is the right time to bring in a
full-time communications professional to add a strong strategic element to our
communications activities."
Yost will be responsible for all communications activities at Exide
Technologies, including corporate public relations, product public relations,
internal communications, and crisis management.
He will report directly to Lutz, while at the same time work closely with
the other two members of Exide's Office of the Chairman: President and Chief
Operating Officer Craig Muhlhauser and Executive Vice President and Chief
Financial Officer Kevin Morano.
"Tim brings 20 years of Fortune 10 communications experience to Exide,"
added Lutz. "At Chrysler Corporation, he and I worked closely together on
what I felt were winning communications efforts directed to the gamut of key
corporate constituents -- investors, the media, dealer-customers, regulators,
employees, etc.
"Certainly, one of his first big challenges will be helping us point out
the fact to the outside world that today's Exide is a lot more than just an
automotive-battery company, as important as that business is to us. In fact,
approximately one-third of Exide Technologies' business today is with
industrial customers, customers that include Internet service providers, giant
telecommunications companies, sophisticated materials-handling equipment
producers, and so forth. Not enough people know what Exide Technologies is up
to in these historically fast-growing business segments, nor for that matter
in our automotive-battery businesses. I'm confident Tim will help us change
that."
Yost, 46, was most recently General Director of Corporate Communications
at General Motors Corporation, joining that company in April 1999. Prior to
that, he served for 18 years at Chrysler Corporation, most recently as Senior
Manager of Executive Communications and Core Processes Communications. Over
the years, he played key roles in communications strategies surrounding
Chrysler's turnaround of the early 1990s, the company's successful "change
management" initiative of that same time, the company's dealings with
investors, the company's stances on key public policy issues, and the
company's merger with Daimler-Benz A.G.
Yost has a Master of Arts degree in English and a Bachelor of Arts degree
(with high honor) in history, both from Michigan State University. He has
also completed coursework at the Graduate School of Business Administration at
the University of Michigan. In addition, he is a former freelance journalist,
with several magazine and newspaper publications to his name.
Exide Technologies is the global leader in providing electrical-energy
storage solutions. The company has annualized revenues of approximately
$3 billion and has operations in 89 countries, serving the industrial and
transportation markets.
Industrial applications include network power batteries for
telecommunications systems, fuel-cell load-leveling, electric utilities,
railroads, photovoltaic uses, and other uninterruptible-power-supply markets;
and motive-power applications for a broad range of equipment uses, including
lift trucks, mining conveyances and other commercial vehicles.
Transportation applications include automotive, heavy-duty truck,
agricultural, and marine batteries, as well as new technologies being
developed for hybrid vehicles and new 42-volt automotive applications. The
company supplies transportation customers in both the aftermarket and the
original equipment market.
Further information on Exide Technologies, its financial results and
recent events can be found on the Internet at http://www.exideworld.com.