Gardiner, ME – Today NEAR, a division of Bogen Communications, Inc., announced the relocation of Bogen’s three key functional areas from a consolidated facility in Ramsey, NJ to three separate new facilities. The moves are part of the company’s strategy for responding to and building on its rapid growth over the past few years. NEAR dealers, distributors, and end users, as well as those of the other brands under the Bogen corporate umbrella, Bogen and Apogee, are expected to benefit from the new locations.
Operations
Bogen said that its warehousing, manufacturing, factory service, and quality assurance functions have been relocated to a new facility in centrally located Memphis, TN. The new Katherine L. Fields Distribution & Operations Center is named in honor of Bogen’s longest tenured employee, the late Katherine Fields, who worked at Bogen for an astounding 66 years.
Memphis is a major hub for rail, water, air and road transportation modes. Located on the Mississippi River, Memphis has one of the largest container ports in the country, and is several days closer to west coast ports via rail. Key shipping companies are minutes from Bogen’s warehouse, allowing greater flexibility in customer shipments, including the ability to make next-day emergency product shipments to customers.
R&D Center
Reflecting a commitment to providing customers with industry leading functionality and value in its product line, Bogen said it has moved its engineering, research and development functions to Orlando, FL. The new location provides the engineering team with spacious and collaboration-friendly space suitable to development of advanced audio products.
Over the past 12 months Bogen has augmented its engineering capability. The engineering team, along with William Kieltyka, NEAR Division General Manager, will be focused on developing highly flexible system solutions to fulfill the evolving technology needs of their customer base. Kieltyka will continue to work out of the NEAR satellite R&D facility in Gardiner, ME. Having the Engineering team based out of Orlando, FL. allows Bogen to take advantage of the investments the state of Florida has made over the years developing Florida’s Technology Corridor to recruit top talent and have access to resources at some of the best state universities.
The Orlando space also includes a conference center and sophisticated demo room in which product trainings, demonstrations and events can be held for dealers and customers interested in the Bogen, Apogee and NEAR brands. Orlando features low cost and abundant air travel access from everywhere in the US.
Headquarters
Executive, accounting, marketing, and sales functions are now housed in a more appropriately sized suite of offices in Mahwah, NJ.
“In light of our multiyear growth trajectory, and our strategic commitment to our customers, these moves will allow us to better serve our dealers, distributors and end users,” said Michael Fleischer, President of Bogen Communications, Inc.
About NEAR
Founded in 1988 and acquired by Bogen Communications, Inc. in 1997, NEAR continues under the creative and business leadership of founder Bill Kieltyka. Bill’s passion for advancing high-quality music reproduction and its reputation as the leader in the creation of speakers for use under the most extreme conditions are foundational to the NEAR mission. NEAR creates and markets audiophile grade speakers for year round use, under extreme conditions, at all latitudes of our planet. NEAR is headquartered at 8 ABJ Drive, Gardiner, ME 04345 and is a division of Bogen Communications, Inc.
About Bogen
For more than 80 years, Bogen Communications, Inc., has been a leading provider of commercial amplifiers, speakers, and intercom systems for music, paging, and educational applications. For more information, contact Bogen Communications, Inc., 1200 MacArthur Blvd. Mahwah, NJ 07430; 201-934-8500, Fax: 201-934-9832, E-mail: [email protected], Web site: www.bogen.com.
