The Historian of Doosan
Officially, Glenn Pedersen’s job title is Director of Inside Sales & Operations. But unofficially? He is the unquestioned Historian of Doosan Machine Tools America. 36 years will do that. Here’s his story.
Doosan hires its very first full-time American employee
The year was 1981. Charles and Diana got married, Ronald Reagan graced four Time covers, and Glenn Pedersen became Doosan’s first American employee. He started out at another machine builder after college, but he was quickly scooped up by Y.B. Lee.
In the early 80s, there were only three CNC machine models: the DSN-20, the PAN-20 and the PUMA 10. Glenn’s early Doosan (aka Daewoo) days were spent in field service. Back then, he knew every customer personally since an average of two machines were sold per month.
Early 80s: More machines, more responsibilities
In 1986, after the engineering manager left, Glenn took over everything between service and sales: catalogs, training, product development, applications, quotations, inventory control, and (GULP) IMTS. And IMTS planning was stressful, to say the least.
Glenn managed the shows from 1986 through 1994. In 1986 there were seven machines to showcase in the 50’ x 100’ booth and countless challenges to overcome. Now, Glenn has a philosophy of never criticizing anything having to do with IMTS. He remembers that unique challenge well, and he empathizes with the people who bring the booth to life.
Our Director of Inside Sales & Operations
Today, Glenn is in charge of a LOT. Inventory, import/export, order processing, quoting, technical and inside sales all make up his daily tasks. Whenever someone within Doosan has a question, they go to Glenn. He has a vast knowledge of discontinued Doosan and Daewoo models, and his quotes and files go back decades.
When we asked the historian what most people don’t know about Doosan, he quickly said most people don’t know the breadth of our lineup. Few do. There are about 150 stocking configurations in inventory in North America in addition to several others sold globally.
And although he can’t recall exactly how many times he’s flown to Korea, he’s logged almost half a million miles with Korean Air. In case you’re curious, that’s enough to go to the moon and back. It makes perfect sense that the Doosan historian knows his exact distance traveled, doesn’t it?