Heniser brings Brigade home

Corey Heniser was at a crossroads.
Literally.
He was traveling through the United Kingdom on behalf of Preco Electronics, a manufacturer of radar equipment, and he had one more sales call to make.
But it was late in the day, and he thought maybe he could cancel the appointment.
So when he stopped at that crossroads, he made a call to the customer, Brigade Electronics PLC, figuring he could reschedule for some other time.
But the folks at Brigade wanted to see him.
Even though it’s late, they said, come anyway. We’ll take you to dinner and get to know one another.
That was a little over three years ago.
Last month, Heniser was named chief executive officer of Brigade Electronics Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of the U.K.-based company.
And the North American headquarters of Brigade Electronics is — unlikely as it may seem — on South Meridian Street in Portland.
Brigade is an international leader is vehicle safety equipment, with offices not only in the U.K. and the U.S. but in France, Italy, Germany, South Africa, The Netherlands and Spain as well.
And its equipment — sophisticated cameras, white noise warning devices and other constantly advancing technology — is used all over the world, wherever heavy equipment is working. Mines in India and China as well as buses and garbage trucks in California use Brigade’s safety devices.
“It’s a family company with locations all around the world,” Heniser said in a recent interview.
Engineers at Brigade Electronics in the U.K. design the equipment, manufacturing is done in China and South Korea and the U.K. engineers maintain quality control.
“Everything we ship comes from the U.K.,” said Heniser.
“How you do business is different today,” he said. “My day can start at 5:30, 6 o’clock in the morning with emails.”
The headquarters is in Portland because that’s where Heniser lives, and the office on South Meridian Street is the successor to space in the basement of his home on East Race Street.
A 1987 graduate of Jay County High School, Heniser attended Franklin College for a year, then got his degrees in electronic engineering and business administration from DeVry Institute of Technology. He and his wife, Connie (Griesinger) Heniser, returned to Jay County in 2001 when Heniser was establishing his career in sales.
“We thought we’d never come back,” he said.
Brigade, which was founded in 1976 by Chris Hanson-Abbott, was looking for ways to get into the U.S. market and tapped Heniser to take the lead.
“In the U.S., they had only one guy in Palmerton, Pennsylvania,” he said.
A nearby warehouse in Allentown was Brigade’s only footprint in this country. But that’s changing.
“We have sales people in Texas and the Carolinas,” said Heniser.
He expects the company to add a West Coast warehouse in the future.
“They know the potential is here,” he said.
Currently, Heniser’s hoping to hire additional sales people for the Portland headquarters. The staff is now just three — Heniser, Tabby Sprunger and James Brewster, who was recently hired to do installations — but he thinks Brigade’s pattern of consistent, conservative growth could mean big things down the road.
“It’s possible to have a warehouse here in the future,” he said.
As a salesman, Heniser’s enthusiasm for Brigade’s products is infectious.
A box truck that doubles as a rolling showroom is equipped with four cameras on the exterior and software that “sews” the images together so the driver has a complete 360-degree view around the vehicle.
“We do about 80,000 cameras a year,” he said.
Instead of emitting a “beep,” when the truck backs up it makes a white noise sound that resembles the quack of a duck. That warning sound is directional, so it’s easier to tell where it’s coming from. And the warning sound automatically adjusts itself to the ambient noise, so it’s no louder than it has to be but will always be heard. The result, Heniser said, is fewer noise complaints and fewer accidents.
“That’s what really caught the attention of the industry,” said Heniser.
The city of Portland has already purchased three of the white noise warning devices and a camera for its heavy equipment.[[In-content Ad]]