MARSHALL ? Two brothers working for Eaton share more than just a family name and an employer ? they now each have won the Eaton Gamechanger Award, the company?s highest recognition for innovative employees who drive breakthrough results for their work on different advanced technologies that enable significant fuel savings benefits.
Older brother Tom Genise won the award in 2003 for the development of the DM clutch. The system is the enabling technology for Eaton?s breakthrough UltraShift automated transmission family, which helps improve the fuel efficiency and ease of operation of commercial vehicles. This technology is specified by all major commercial vehicle OEMs in North America. Tom also has been awarded 68 patents.
Younger brother Dave, who is the director of valve train engineering working out of Marshall, won the 2013 Gamechanger award for his work on Eaton?s variable valve engine technology that improves the fuel efficiency of passenger cars. The technology enables both cylinder deactivation and variable valve lift across a wide range of engines. The technology is on production vehicles today. Dave has been awarded eight patents.
?Eaton?s Gamechanger award is a true recognition of those employees who have made extraordinary contributions to help the company achieve great things,? said Tom Stover, vice president, engineering & technology, Eaton Vehicle Group. ?The Vehicle Group is extremely proud to have Tom and Dave Genise as recipients of this prestigious award and for the innovations they were responsible for.?
Tom said the award is given once every three years to seven to 10 Eaton employees.
?I was invited to Eaton Worldwide?s managers meeting in Florida, where Chairman of the Board Sandy Cutler announced the winners and gave us $10,000 each,? Tom Genise said.
?It is a once in a career honor,? said Tom. ?I can?t thank the engineering team here enough for all the work they did. It?s a good recognition for the work we?ve done.?
He added: ?We are two engineers that the company recognizes, and it shows Eaton puts a lot of value on innovation and product development. This is one of the reasons I joined the company 15 years ago.?
Tom, who joined Eaton 32 years ago, said what attracted him to Eaton is he saw the company valued innovation, creativity and true engineering excellence more than other companies he interviewed with. I saw it as a chance to invest in crazy things and follow through.?
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