Thor Industries, Inc. has hired McKay Featherstone, currently Airstream’s vice president of product development and engineering, as its senior vice president of global innovation, effective May 1, 2022.
Josef Hjelmaker, Thor Industries’ chief innovation officer since September 2020, has started to transition his responsibilities to Featherstone for a seamless transition.
“Josef joined us in the middle of the pandemic, and we assigned him the very specific and difficult task of bringing our eMobility strategy to life. The first step, from design to actual product in complicated vehicles like our electric RVs, is an incredibly challenging one. Josef fully met that challenge and delivered what are best-in-class electric RV designs to our industry, setting the standard on which our industry will build. He has been a great team member and will undoubtedly continue to have many successes in the space of innovation,” said Bob Martin, Thor Industries, president and CEO.
“As we considered the leadership of the next phase of our eMobility strategy which ultimately leads to industrialization, a sharp understanding of the importance of the RV customer experience and the challenges of delivering a viable go-to-market strategy for our electric RVs was essential. McKay has led innovation at Airstream for a number of years. In doing so, McKay has exhibited the skill set and awareness of the need to deliver products that maximize the user experience which is unmatched in our industry. We are excited to add McKay to our team at Thor and to have him lead our global innovation efforts,” said Todd Woelfer, COO, Thor Industries.
