Life moves at fast pace for National Product Manager Jay Johnson

The Minneapolis-based manager brings academic and practical know-how to SICK’s motion control sensor business nationwide. “As a national product manager, its part sales, part marketing, and a significant amount of technical support,” Jay says.

Jay serves a wide range of customers in factory automation and logistics automation settings, and is on the road a good portion of any month. He enjoys keeping up on technology trends. Now, advances in motion technologies and Industry 4.0 are enabling increased automation, and driving industries like automotive, packaging and web-based retail.

To help solve customer problems, Jay puts his Masters in electronic computer technology from Indiana State to work along with 17 years of writing software and designing interfaces for motion control systems. “It’s fun to be able to use that experience and work with customers to solve their problems. We learn what their requirements and wishes are and take that back to Engineering for future product development,” Jay says.

Jay’s background is an asset to SICK customers when it comes to helping customers understand and select a product to best suit the application. Or, when supporting the development of a new product or modification by acting as a liaison between sales and engineering. But the most rewarding experience is back at the customer on the post-sales side to see the product application in action after guiding a project.

Married with three grown children, the self-described gearhead can be found tooling around with motorcycles and cars. Jay is a proud owner of a drag race car that is best suited for the track and not regular streets.

Going at a slower pace, Jay and his wife enjoy hiking. He has climbed 17 of the “fourteeners” in the state of Colorado—peaks with an elevation of at least 14,000 feet. In May 2018, he plans to scale Mount Rainer in Washington. In Washington, he’s also climbed Mount Baker and in Oregon, Mount Hood.