Bert-Jan Knoef

Hamburg, Germany
STILL GmbH's supervisory board has extended the contract of management board chairman Bert-Jan Knoef. His appointment was due to expire in 2013, but he will now lead STILL until 2017. Gordon Riske, CEO of KION Group and chairman of the supervisory board, says Knoef has developed STILL's market position in the last four years in a "straight-forward, future-oriented and unerring manner".
Knoef has been a member of the management board since 2005. He was previously in several executive roles in sales and service at Linde Kältetechnik. From 1985 until 1998, he was responsible for several international management positions in the Black & Decker group.

Elkhart, IN, United States
Robert "Bob" Hull has received Toyota Material Handling USA Inc's Lifetime Achievement Award. Although most of his friends have retired, Hull, chairman of Hull Lift Truck Inc in Elkhart, Indiana, is still dedicated to the dealership his father started 50 years ago.
Hull's father, Edgar, started Hull Lift Truck in 1962. The elder Hull invited his three sons to join him in the venture and after being discharged from the US Army, Bob Hull started at the business in its first year.
At one time, all his brothers - along with his two sisters - worked there. Now his son, Brian, is the third-generation family member working there, becoming company president in 2002.
Bob led the initiative to have the family business become a Toyota Industrial Equipment dealership in 1992 and, because of the success, eventually terminated agreements with other forklift manufacturers and turned to selling Toyota exclusively.
Brett Wood, president and CEO of Toyota Material Handling North America, says Hull
is a "shining example of leadership in his business, his community and his industry".