Vishnu Bhagwat

Cascade Corporation has announced the establishment of wholly owned subsidiary Cascade India.

Vishnu Bhagwat, Cascade India's first employee, has been appointed general manager - sales, based near Mumbai, India.

He brings over 19 years of technical, sales and management experience to Cascade India, most recently with Maini Material Handling Company, where he was the general manager of marketing. Maini is the authorised distributor of Still forklifts in India.

"Although India is a small market now, we believe it will grow rapidly," says Frank Altenhofen, vice president Asia Pacific, who was instrumental in the creation of the new company. "India's population is 1.2 billion, with a growing middle class. We see a growing need for modern materials handling practices and equipment in India, similar to what we saw develop in China over the past 20 years.

"Cascade is committed to providing India's forklift OEMs, dealers, and end-users with sales expertise and service and support for all of their forklift attachment and fork requirements," he adds.

Cascade Corporation was established in Portland in 1943 and is now a global leader in the design, manufacture, and marketing of materials handling equipment and related technologies.