Great Dane appoints new CEO Engelage and president Mullininx

After 25 years, Great Dane CEO Bill Crown is stepping down effective Jan. 1.

Great Dane CEO Bill Crown will step down from his position at the trailer manufacturer, effective Jan. 1, 2023, with Dean Engelage, Great Dane’s president, to replace him, according to a Great Dane press release.

“It has been a privilege to serve Great Dane as CEO over the past 25 years, where both our internal team and our customers feel like family,” Crown said. “Dean and I have worked closely together, and Dean has been a terrific leader and president for Great Dane. I step aside with confidence that Great Dane is in good and capable hands.”

“I am honored to accept my new role as CEO of Great Dane,” Engelage said. “I look forward to working with our dedicated team to further the Company’s market leadership and equip our customers for the future, while maintaining the first-class customer experience they expect from us.”

Dean Engelage will be Great Dane's CEO effective Jan. 1.

Dean Engelage joined Great Dane in 2011 as EVP of sales and strategic planning and was later appointed president in 2013. Prior to Great Dane, Engelage worked for American Airlines and General Dynamics in marketing, purchasing and finance, and most recently spent more than 16 years with CC Industries, the management company that manages the Crown family’s portfolio of operating companies, in various management positions.

Additionally, Bill Crown and Dean Engelage announced that they have named Rick Mullininx to succeed Engelage as president and chief operating officer of Great Dane, also effective Jan. 1, 2023. Mr. Mullininx has been with Great Dane for 40 years and served in various engineering and manufacturing roles within Great Dane for all that time, which makes him one of the company’s most senior associates. He now is EVP of engineering, responsible for product design, production engineering, manufacturing engineering, quality assurance, and customer service.

EVP of engineering Rick Mullininx will be the new president and COO of Great Dane effective Jan. 1.

“Great Dane is an exceptional company and I take on this new position with excitement and humility,” said Mullininx. “Great Dane’s legacy is a customer-focused approach during every interaction and at every stage of production, providing exceptional equipment that performs well under the most challenging conditions. I’m honored to be part of a legacy that is family-oriented yet future-focused.”

Dean Engelage said, “I am delighted to have Rick Mullininx step up to take over responsibility for the day-to-day leadership of the Great Dane Team. I know he will do a terrific job.”

Rick Mullininx first joined Great Dane in 1980 when he took a summer engineering position as an intern in the research and development department in Savannah, Georgia. Soon after, he accepted a position as an engineer in production design and development, responsible for developing designs for customer orders. Prior to his most recent role as the EVP of engineering, Mullininx served as the VP of engineering, responsible for the design and production engineering for five trailer product lines in addition to previous manufacturing engineering duties.