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Specialized has expanded its Swiss headquarters, growing the resource of its research and development, as well as hiring a few new engineering staff.
Based in Cham, Switzerland, seven new employees join the workforce, four of whom relocate from the California headquarters.
That appointments include design engineer Amber Lucas, wheel design engineer Rob Meyer, senior product manager Marco Sonderegger and European engineering manager Jan Talavasek. Marc Faude is the product manager for Europe.
Boby Bowen, operations manager at Specialized Europe said the expansion of the European office’s resources should enable the brand to spend more time designing urban bikes for European markets.
He said: “It only takes being over here for a couple weeks and you notice the number of older people riding bikes here and the number of people who use the bike to ride to the grocery store and take home two bikes of groceries. It’s just stuff that you don’t see day to day in the US, so there’s nothing better than being really directly connected with your target audience.”
Specialized has said that two new lines – the Crossover and Source – will land in 2012, targetting the commuter, trekking, sport and city bikes.
