In this installment of our 5 Questions With… series, we sat down with Positec USA Executive Vice President David “DJ” Johnson to discuss the company’s Kress brand of all-electric outdoor power equipment and why it chose Spring 2023 as the time to enter the U.S. market. Kress’ product lineup includes robotic lawn mowers, leaf blowers and chain saws.
Can you explain a bit about what Kress USA is?
Johnson: Kress is a brand that’s been around for many years, particularly in Europe, and our parent company Positec acquired the Kress brand back in 2016. We are launching Kress for the first time in North America for outdoor power equipment in the spring.
We’ve assembled a team of very high caliber industry folks who have years and years of experience. I believe we counted over 1,500 years of experience in the team we’ve assembled. We have our director of sales, John Sloan, whose background is in the dealer channel. John’s recruited 6 regional managers, and then we have 36 business development managers, who will be our territory field team. In addition to that, we are recruiting and putting in place a product demo team nationwide to help support our dealers.
Why is now the right time to enter the North American market?
Johnson: We think there are 2 significant trends that are occurring. One I think we all can agree on is electrification, and we see this in cars. We’re beginning to see it in outdoor power equipment and many other things. Looking at drivers of electrification, one is pollution. Outdoor power equipment especially is a big polluter. We believe with the products of ours that will be available, we can help jumpstart that electrification trend.
