Cummins executive Kleine elected SAE International President

SAE International's voting membership elected Dr. Richard E. Kleine as its 2011 SAE international president. Kleine is vice president, quality and business enterprise for Cummins Inc.

Kleine served as SAE International's sector vice president-Commercial Vehicle from 2008-2010. He also is a member of the SAE Commercial Vehicle Executive Council.

Kleine has been with Cummins since 1981. He has held various leadership positions in engineering and marketing. Prior to his current role as head of Cummins MidRange Engine Business Quality organization, he was VP of the Off Highway business group. Other positions he has held include executive director of Automotive Customer Engineering, director of the Automotive Business located in the United Kingdom, director of Automotive Marketing and Product Planning; chief engineer of Advanced Concepts; and manager of Application Engineering for Automotive and Industrial products.

Kleine holds bachelor and master of science degrees in technology education from Indiana State University; and a doctorate in technology from West Virginia University. He has been a member of SAE since 1986 serving on numerous committees including the Commercial Vehicle Activity Committee; the Commercial Vehicle Engineering Operations Activity Executive Committee; and the Buckendale Lecture Committee.

Kleine's one-year term will begin in January 2011.

SAE International is a global association of more than 128,000 engineers and related subject matter technical experts in the aerospace, automotive and commercial-vehicle industries. SAE International's core competencies are life-long learning and voluntary consensus standards development. SAE International's charitable arm is the SAE Foundation, which supports many programs, including A World In Motion and the Collegiate Design Series.