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People News: AITX, Duos

Written by Marybeth Luczak, Executive Editor
Texas Howard, President, American Industrial Transport, Inc. (AITX)

Texas Howard, President, American Industrial Transport, Inc. (AITX)

American Industrial Transport, Inc. (AITX) appoints Texas Howard as President and elevates Kurt Higginbotham to CEO. Also, Duos Technologies names Matt Keepman as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, a newly created role.

Texas Howard has joined railcar service provider AITX as President, succeeding Kurt Higginbotham, who took on the role last year. Higginbotham, now CEO, will support Howard and focus on long-term strategic initiatives, according to the company. He will also remain as an AITX Board Member.

Howard will assume day-to-day leadership of AITX. He brings a 25-year background in “scaling industrial organizations by developing and leveraging operational efficiencies, corporate finance strategies and high-performing teams,” said AITX, which in June 2022, grew its repair and maintenance network across the U.S. Northeast and Midwest with facilities in Milton, Pa. and Clinton, Ind., and in August 2021, acquired The Andersons’ railcar leasing business. His accomplishments include 15 years in the infrastructure sector, serving as President of ABLE Applied Technologies as well as Chief Financial Officer of private-equity owned energy infrastructure businesses that provided midstream and processing, gas storage, oil and gas exploration and production, and oilfield services. Howard also oversaw the expansion of railcar service platforms at both Appalachian Railcar Services and Cathcart Rail, and spent 10 years in the corporate finance sector, including service as Chief Risk Officer of GE Energy Financial Services (Canada).

“We are excited to see business cohesion across our leadership, teams, and systems, resulting in culture of performance and integrity,” Kurt Higginbotham said. “It is the perfect time to have Texas at the helm of the organization. He’s a proven and unique talent who can simultaneously focus on exceeding operational milestones while driving AITX toward broader ambitions.”

At Duos Technologies, Inc., Matt Keepman is Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. He will be responsible for leading commercial strategy and tasked with advancing Duos’ “go-to-market strategy as it expands its [railcar inspection portal] offerings to private railcar owners, lessors and shippers via inspection data subscription plans,” according to the company.

With more than 20 years of experience managing strategic accounts within the North American rail industry, Keepman served most recently as a Key Account Executive for Wabtec Corporation, leading commercial strategy for Canadian Pacific across all of Wabtec’s business segments.

“Matt’s addition has been a longtime coming,” Duos CEO Chuck Ferry said. “We look forward to his contributions to our targeted commercial growth efforts that lie ahead. Our team has spent the last two-plus years laser-focused on increasing the quality and reliability of our solutions with that directive now largely completed. As part of the next phase of our plan, we are actively exploring additional revenue streams that call for broader market penetration to a considerably larger list of prospective customers. We expect that Matt and his team will be essential in serving our existing customer base as well as pursuing new lines of business that will support our goals for sustained, consistent revenue growth.”

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