Solar Turbines president gets promotion

Caterpillar's Board of Directors has elected Jim Umpleby, currently vice president with responsibility for Solar Turbines,

as a group president with responsibility for Caterpillar's Energy & Power Systems business. He takes over from Gerard Vittecoq who is retiring. 

Umpleby was named a Caterpillar vice president and the president of Solar Turbines

 in 2010. During his career with Solar, he has worked around the world in positions with increasing responsibilities in engineering, manufacturing, sales and customer services.

Umpleby joined Solar Turbines 

in 1980 as an associate engineer. Over the course of the next decade with Solar, he held a number of engineering and sales positions including assignments in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In 1994, he became the director of power systems operations and facility manager of Solar's Kearny Mesa gas turbine

 packaging facility. In 1997, he became a Solar vice president with responsibility for customer services and in 2000 was named Solar vice president for Turbomachinery Products. In 2005, Umpleby assumed responsibilities as a general manager for global services for Caterpillar, a Peoria-based assignment in Caterpillar's Product Support Division.He was named Solar's vice president for oil and gas in 2007.

Umpleby graduated from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1980. He completed an executive leadership program at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1996. Umpleby serves on the board of directors for the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation and CONNECT. He is also an executive committee member of the board of directors of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) Foundation. A replacement for Umpleby will be named in the near future. Umpleby will assume his new role effective January 1, 2013.