Vestas has added three new employees to its North American management team. Vestas has hired David Gels as vice president of quality and process excellence, Ramon Mendoza as warranty management chief specialist, and David Sword as government relations director for Canada.
Gels, who specializes in operational quality, comes to Vestas from Philips Healthcare in Bothell, Wash., where he spent eight years as the director of business excellence. At Philips, he was the Lean Six Sigma deployment leader for the North American sales, service and ultrasound businesses. Gels has been a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt since 2001 and an American Society for Quality (ASQ) Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence since 2003.
As chief specialist of warranty management, Mendoza works cross-functionally to develop systems and business processes to manage customer warranties and warranty claims. Mendoza, who brings more than 25 years of experience to his position, returns to Vestas from an 11-month position as vice president of field operations for Stirling Energy Systems, a solar company. In his prior 15-year career with Vestas, he served as vice president of technology, director of technical services, head of service activities, resource and technical support manager, and field technician. Before joining Vestas in 1995, Mendoza worked on wind turbine projects in California on behalf of wind developers and owners.
Sword will focus on regulatory and legislative issues in Canada as well as relations with Canadian media and other key stakeholders. Prior to joining Vestas, Sword was active within the Ontario energy sector. He held senior positions with the private sector and also within the Ontario government in the area of government and external relations. Sword has worked with many trade associations including the Canadian Gas Association and the Ontario Energy Association. Currently, Sword is vice chair of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.
Vestas, which has its North American headquarters in Portland, Ore., employs about 3,000 people in the United States and Canada in positions including sales, operations, manufacturing, engineering and research. Vestas employs more than 20,000 people worldwide.