New CEO Stephen Roell Takes the Reigns at Johnson Controls

Johnson Controls, Inc., Milwaukee, WI, announced that Stephen A. Roell, executive vice president and vice chairman, has been elected chief executive officer, effective October 1. He was also elected chairman of Johnson Controls’ board of directors, effective January 1, 2008.
Roell succeeds John M. Barth, who will retire December 31, after 38 years of service, but will continue to serve on the company’s board of directors.
“We will continue to be a diversified multi-industrial company, dedicated to improving comfort, safety and sustainability with innovative products and services for the places where people live, work and travel,” Roell said. “With a focus on customer satisfaction, technology and global fluency, Johnson Controls is dedicated to helping make its customers more successful. We have substantial opportunities for growth around the world. In particular, we will seek to strengthen our leadership in the emerging markets through support of our global and regional customers.” Roell added that “Johnson Controls has a wide array of sustainability-oriented solutions that save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and protect the environment, and we will be aggressive in bringing them to our customers.” During a teleconference on July 26, Roell told Contracting Business that Johnson Controls sees worldwide growth possibilities in its building controls and residential comfort businesses.
“York provided us with a great footprint in a number of those international markets, and we’ve been able to take advantage of what we call cross-selling (within our controls and residential businesses), which is essentially introducing each side of the business to the other customer base,” Roell said.
“York had relationships which we were able to leverage with our Legacy controls business, and vice-versa. We think there’s tremendous opportunity to continue that in the next several years.”
Roell joined JCI in 1982 and was elected to the Johnson Controls board of directors in 2004.
Visit www.johnsoncontrols.com for additional information.