Holden’s ‘green’ chief moves on

GM HOLDEN director of energy, environment and technology Richard Marshall has left the company and is now working as a consultant in his areas of expertise including product design, innovation and sustainability.

Mr Marshall has more than 25 years’ experience in the automotive industry and was a key figure among the senior ranks at Holden for more than two decades, holding a number of significant engineering and technical positions over the years.

These included five years as group manager (body structures and closures) from 2003 to 2008, after which he joined the company’s board as director of innovation engineering.

In 2009, Mr Marshall became director of energy and environment, a newly created position that made him responsible for “leading development and driving the implementation of GM Holden’s energy diversity strategy”. He added ‘technology’ to his areas of responsibility in mid-2011.

While engineering director Greg Tyus has overseen alternative powertrain development for locally built models in recent years, Mr Marshall was heavily involved in the launch of the Holden Volt plug-in hybrid and the company’s LPG and ethanol vehicle (and related infrastructure) programs.

The latter included a plan to build a $300 million ethanol plant from household waste in association with US biofuel producer Coskata, although that program subsequently stalled.

GoAuto understands that Mr Marshall’s role has now been split among three senior managers, although Holden is still to confirm the restructure.

In other Holden-related senior management moves, HSV chief engineer Joel Stoddart has left the Australian performance-car company on the eve of the new Gen-F series launch to take up a new role with caravan-maker Jayco.

HSV has confirmed to GoAuto that Mr Stoddart, who was in the role for the past five-and-a-half years, has been replaced by long-serving program manager Graeme Dusting.