Timken Adding Engineers at ICAR

The Timken Company (USA; NYSE: TKR) said it will staff the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research in Greenville (CU-ICAR) with more than the 110 R&D staff originally planned. Now, Timken says it will staff ICAR with 200 or more workers, about half of whom will be engineers. ICAR will be home to Timken's powertrain engineering efforts. A Timken spokesman said its ICAR involvement has, "continued to evolve as we have looked at this strategically in the company and what we want to do with it." Timken is just now moving into its space in the facility; the total complement of 200 should be on site by the end of the year. Most of the staff will be shifted from Canton, Torrington, Norcross, and Detroit; approximately 20 are local hires. Separately, Timken and Clemson University recently announced Dr. John C. Ziegert will hold the Timken Chair in Automotive Design and Development at the Carroll A. Campbell Graduate Engineering Center at CU-ICAR. Timken pledged $3 million to endow the chair, one of four endowed chairs at CU-ICAR. Dr. Ziegert will lead research initiatives in analysis and design of precision machining for automotive applications and coordinate collaborative research and development projects between the university¡¯s R&D resources and Timken¡¯s on-site engineering group. Jacqui Dedo, Timken's President of Automotive, said: "John brings a valuable mix of industry experience and academic leadership to the endowment. We look forward to working with John to combine the knowledge and innovation of our on-site Timken associates with that of Clemson's R&D community to develop friction management and power transmission solutions that will transform not only the automotive industry, but other industrial markets as well."