James W. Owens

Chairman & Chief Executive Office of Caterpillar, Inc.

James Owens is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Caterpillar, Inc. in Peoria, Illinois.  After joining Caterpillar in 1972 as a Corporate Economist, he has held numerous management positions in the company.

Mr. Owens was named Chief Economist of Caterpillar Overseas S.A. in Geneva, Switzerland in 1975.  From 1980 until 1987, he held managerial positions in Peoria in the Accounting and Product Source Planning Departments.  In 1987, he became Managing Director of P.T. Natra Raya, Caterpillar’s joint venture in Indonesia.  He held that position until 1990, when he was elected a Corporate Vice President and named President of Solar Turbines Incorporated, a Caterpillar subsidiary in San Diego.  In 1993, he came to Peoria as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer with administrative responsibility for the Corporate Services Division.

In 1995, Mr. Owens was named a Group President and Member of Caterpillar’s Executive Office.  Over the next eight years, Mr. Owens was, at various times, responsible for 13 of the company’s 25 divisions.  In December 2003, the Caterpillar Board of Directors named Owens Vice Chairman and appointed him Chairman and Chief Executive Officer effective February 2004.

Mr. Owens is a Director of Alcoa Inc. in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and IBM Corporation in Armonk, New York.  He is a Director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C. and the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.  He is Chairman of the Business Council, an advisory group for the U.S. Government and a Member of the Business Roundtable and the President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.  He is also a Member of the Board of Trustees for North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Mr. Owens, a native of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, graduated from North Carolina State University in 1973 with a PhD in Economics.

OTHER SPEAKERS

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  Richard A. Debs

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  The Honorable General James B. Smith

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  Mr. Zuhair Hamed Fayez