Lightning eMotors, a leading provider of commercial zero-emission vehicles for fleets, has named a new head of its Lightning Energy division and a new vice president of global manufacturing.
Brandon McNeil has been appointed vice president of Lightning Energy, reporting to Kash Sethi, chief revenue officer. In this newly created role, McNeil will lead the company’s Lightning Energy division, which provides customers with charging infrastructure products and services.
McNeil has been with Lightning for the past two and a half years, overseeing operations for supply chain, production, vehicle installation and service for Lightning. Prior to joining the company, he served as executive vice president of operations and manufacturing for Ice Energy, a California-based energy-storage company.
“We would like to thank Brandon for his tremendous efforts building and leading the manufacturing, quality and service operations for the past years that ultimately allowed us to achieve our incredible results in the first quarter of this year,” Sethi said. “Brandon’s unrelenting determination, perseverance and broad understanding of our business make him the ideal candidate to lead our fast-growing Lightning Energy business.”
Brian Barron will join Lightning eMotors as the company’s new vice president of global manufacturing, reporting to Tim Reeser, CEO, Lightning eMotors. In this role, Barron will be tasked with continuing to scale the company’s manufacturing operations to enable Lightning eMotors to achieve its aggressive growth trajectory. Barron, who takes over for McNeil, will lead all production operations, including advanced manufacturing, production planning and vehicle assembly.
“Brian brings with him a wealth of operations experiences, most recently as the site and plant manager for Itron in South Carolina, over 19 years of quality, assembly and operations management experience with BMW in South Carolina, as well as experience leading manufacturing for startups such as Lucid, NIMR and Vector Launch,” Reeser said.
“These changes position us to execute on our ultra-fast growth and expansion plans, and ensure we can grow at the pace our customers are pulling, while providing them world-class, full-service solutions,” Reeser said. “We congratulate Brandon on his new role and welcome Brian to the Lightning family. Kash and I look forward to seeing the impact of their leadership and experience.”
Lightning eMotors is the only electric commercial vehicle manufacturer to sell and deliver zero-emission vehicles (ZEV) in Class 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, including passenger vans, ambulances, shuttle buses, last-mile delivery vans, box trucks, and motor coaches for customers in parcel and delivery, micro transit, airport parking operations, electric utilities and other industries.
Lightning Energy designs, installs, services, and manages charging solutions, providing fleets with turnkey options to support fleet electrification and help stakeholders achieve their sustainability goals. As a part of Lightning eMotors, Lightning Energy offers a full range of purchased or leased charging stations and, optionally, full charging as a service (CaaS). CaaS includes infrastructure installation, permitting, utilities liaison, maintenance, and ongoing management software, and regulatory credit monetization, to operate small, medium or large fleets of electric vehicles.