In 1929, Clessie Cummins installed a Cummins diesel engine in a Packard limousine and went for a ride in America's first diesel-powered car. He would later use this car, and others like it, to set a number of speed and endurance records—including a 13,535-mile run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Leadership Bios
Leadership bios. Our guidance. Our inspiration.
The leadership team of Cummins consists of individuals from around the company who are experts in many fields and who are focused on the continued success of our organization.
Tom Linebarger
Chairman and CEO
On January 1, 2012, Tom became the sixth Chief Executive Officer of Cummins. He is assuming leadership at a critical juncture, with the company facing outstanding growth opportunities in the midst of changing markets and intense competition. Tom has described the next decade as one of accelerated growth.
His first experience at Cummins came in 1991 as a summer intern, when he insisted on working at one of the Company's manufacturing plants.
That decision to get first-hand operations experience was consistent with Tom's desire to work for a company that made "real" products. "My definition of 'real’ products,” he jokes, “is that it hurts if you drop them on your foot."
Tom had very specific thoughts about his career when he joined Cummins full time in 1994, after completing his graduate work in business and engineering at Stanford and working several years in the financial services industry.
"By all measures, I had a terrific job at Prudential," Tom says. "I was paid well for my age, travelled extensively and learned a lot about business and finance. But I was not finding the kind of satisfaction at work that I wanted. I wanted to build a company, lead a team and develop and execute a business plan — not finance other people who were doing these things."
Cummins met Tom's criteria for the right place to work. In addition to its focus on tangible products, Cummins was a global company with significant growth prospects outside the United States. Perhaps most important to Tom, Cummins had "heart."
"It was important to me that the company demonstrated that it cared about its employees and the community," Tom says. "I read two or three passages from (former Cummins Chairman) Irwin Miller before I decided to join the company, and that sealed the deal. His remarks were powerful enough to influence me to join Cummins and they are inspirational to me now as a leader."
Tom's career at Cummins is a testament to the breadth of opportunities that are possible for motivated, self-directed individuals who want to be challenged and who embrace lifelong learning.
After starting as assistant to a vice president in the Company's Engine Business in 1994, Tom quickly moved through the ranks holding engineering, operations, finance and general management roles before becoming President and Chief Operating Officer in 2008. Along the way, Tom has run the Company's turbocharger and power generations businesses and spent three years as Chief Financial Officer, helping guide Cummins through one of the most challenging times in its history.
"I am a person who does not like limits on what I can do or achieve," Tom notes. "At Cummins our jobs are broadly defined and if you have a passion for an area outside your responsibility, you can often find ways to participate in that work. I find that type of environment incredibly motivating."
Tom remains as excited as ever about his career at Cummins and the prospects for the Company's future. He also thinks Cummins has a lot to offer the right job candidates.
"Given our global footprint and range of businesses, Cummins is a terrific place to work for people from a wide variety of backgrounds and wide range of interests," says Tom, who adds that those employees most willing to take control of their careers rather than wait to be told what their next assignment is going to be, generally fare the best at Cummins.
"But it's not the right place for everyone. To be successful here, you need to be committed to lifelong learning, need to be able to communicate openly and effectively across all levels of the organization and you need to share the Company's values."
Those values—integrity innovation, delivering superior results, corporate responsibility, diversity and global involvement—“aren’t just words on a 3 X 5 index card," Tom says. "We embrace these values in every respect of our business and interactions."
Back to top.
Pamela Carter
President — Distribution Business
By the time Pamela Carter joined Cummins in 1997, she already had blazed a career trail that many would envy
She was first African American woman to hold the position of state Attorney General when she was elected to that post in Indiana in 1993, and left a thriving law practice for Cummins where she was immediately thrown into the middle of a contentious legal matter involving the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice.
Pamela quickly made her mark at Cummins by helping to guide the Company through a difficult period and was rewarded with a leadership position within one of Cummins' business units.
"I knew when I joined Cummins, I wanted to run a business. International trade and international business has always been my ultimate goal. I knew other leaders who had recently joined Cummins and who loved it, and that stuck with me."
Over the past decade, Pamela has led Cummins businesses to strong growth — first as a member of the Cummins Filtration leadership team and in her current role as President of the Company's global Distribution business, which sells and services Cummins products in more than 190 countries and territories.
The development of Cummins' Distribution business has been particularly gratifying for Pamela, who has helped lead a change in culture and approach to the Company's most global business. Today, Cummins owns a stake in 85 percent of its distributors around the world and is well on its way to creating a cohesive, integrated sales and service organization that often is the Company's first venture into emerging markets.
"We have now created a business that incorporates distributors and branches, and that is beginning to look much like a business with manufacturing, engineering, sales and marketing, logistics and inventory planning," Pamela notes.
In addition to providing challenging career opportunities, Cummins is a place that allows community-minded individuals such as Pamela to pursue their passion for improving the world around them. In fact, the Company's commitment to corporate responsibility was one of the attractions for Pamela when she joined Cummins and she remains active in the Company's community work.
For those considering a career at Cummins, Pamela says it is imperative that they share the Company's core values such as integrity, innovation, diversity, commitment to delivering superior results and global involvement.
She also calls Cummins a "relationship company" and stresses the need for strong interpersonal skills. For those who fit the bill, the rewards of working for Cummins can be significant.
"Cummins seeks the best people to fill roles globally," Pamela says. "Cummins offers great opportunities to meet, work and live among people of widely diverse backgrounds and cultures. One can have a great deal of fun, adventure and excitement working for Cummins."
Ignacio L. Garcia
President — Corporate Manufacturing & Procurement Officer
Cummins believes that in order to compete successfully in the global marketplace, it must be able to attract and retain the best talent from around the world. Ignacio's career at Cummins is a testament to the power of that philosophy.
Ignacio, a native of Mexico, joined Cummins nearly 30 years ago as a quality engineer in our San Luis Potosi, Mexico, facility where he quickly made a name for himself. Over the next decade, Ignacio also served as a liaison between the Company's operations in Mexico and the corporate offices in Indiana, and led our marketing and sales work in Mexico before becoming Plant Manager in San Luis Potosi.
From there, Ignacio moved to one of Cummins' flagship engine manufacturing plants in the United States. As a manufacturing leader for Cummins in the important North American heavy-duty truck engine market, Ignacio helped oversee a transition of production from one Cummins location to another, which was instrumental in the successful restructuring of the business early last decade.
In order to expand his knowledge in the business, he decided to lead the Purchasing organization for the Engine Business. That work served as a springboard for Ignacio to develop and structure the Corporate Purchasing Function, which now he leads.
Later in 2008, Ignacio was named the global manufacturing and purchasing leader for Cummins. Like many leaders at Cummins, Ignacio appreciates the breadth of the opportunities Cummins creates for motivated employees.
"You need to have superior performance and dedication to succeed, but there is flexibility at Cummins that allows people to experiment with different areas of interest and expertise," Ignacio says. "Learning is always available to you if you want to take advantage of it."
Ignacio added that Cummins offers an "environment of inclusion" that is appealing to him, and said the Company offers good opportunities for those employees whose "personal values are aligned the with the Company's corporate mission and values."
Marya Rose
VP — General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
Marya joined Cummins 13 years ago after a distinguished career in Indiana state government, and has served as the Company's top legal executive and Corporate Secretary since 2001.
When Marya made the decision to join the private sector, she was looking for a company that offered a collaborative work environment where employees were encouraged to ask questions and stretch themselves professionally. She found that at Cummins, first in her role as a Corporate Counsel, and now in her current position.
Marya credits her success to Cummins to "great bosses who pushed me hard to take on leadership roles that I may not have been quite ready for" and who gave her "open and direct feedback that has made me a better leader."
As a senior leader, Marya works to provide the same type of direction to members of her organization, who strive to work as a single team around the world, in keeping with the Company's "One Cummins" philosophy.
"My job is to remove barriers and help guide our highly skilled attorneys so they can effectively serve the Company's interests everywhere we operate," Marya says. "It's an incredibly diverse and rewarding place to work. I never thought when I joined a manufacturing company in Southern Indiana that I would see so much of the world and work with so many different types of people on such a variety of issues."
Theodore (Tim) M. Solso
Former Chairman and CEO
On December 31, 2011 Tim Solso retired as Chairman and CEO after a remarkable 40-year career at Cummins. Tim's commitment to leadership and community is as strong as ever. As the Company's top executive, Tim said that selecting and developing capable leaders to take the Company into the future was his most important job — and he feels fortunate to have had some outstanding role models.
"Cummins has been a great place to work for me, and my success is clearly a function of the support of my leaders and peers," Tim says. "People took risks on giving me assignments early in my career that took my breath away."
Tim Solso joined Cummins after graduating from the Harvard Business School, largely because of a chance to work for a strong leader and the Company's commitment to both making great products and building strong communities.
Tim began his career as the Assistant to the Vice President of Personnel. He quickly was given the opportunity to grow into larger roles, including international assignments in Europe and Brazil, which gave him an appreciation for the global potential of Cummins that is being realized today. He also found himself working alongside a diverse group of colleagues who were "aligned with the Company's goals and were willing to work as a team to meet and exceed expectations."
Of his many accomplishments over the past four decades, Tim is most proud of the Company's financial success after it emerged from one of its lowest periods from 2001 to 2003. The Company rebounded from a deep recession and weakness in key markets by restructuring its business and making a significant commitment to quality and cost control through the introduction of Six Sigma.
As a result, the Company enjoyed record sales and profits from 2004-2011 and is well on its way to even stronger performance today as the global economy recovers from the recession of 2008 and 2009. Most importantly to Tim, Cummins did it the right way: by staying true to its values.
"I am very proud of the fact that we have achieved record financial results over the past decade, through some difficult times, and have never lost sight of the importance of values such as diversity, corporate responsibility, strong governance and ethical behavior," Tim says. "We like to say that doing the right thing is not optional at Cummins, and our employees prove that every day."
Tim says that Cummins offers potential employees the opportunity to grow and develop to their full potential in a challenging, global and dynamic business environment.
"People who work here gain a sense of accomplishment and feel that what they do is important and makes a real difference, says Tim who adds this simple advice to potential employees at Cummins or anywhere else:
"Having a good boss and challenging work are the two most important factors in having a fulfilling career.”
Did You Know
First to the Finish