OI OI Glass Inc

Company appoints leaders whose skills support strategic needs of each region PERRYSBURG, Ohio, April 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Owens-Illinois, Inc., (NYSE:OI) today announced the new presidents for the company's North American and Latin American regions. Miguel Escobar has been named president of O-I North America, and Andres Lopez has been named president of O-I Latin America. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050412/CLTU028LOGO ) Mr. Escobar and Mr. Lopez will assume their roles immediately and will report to President of O-I Global Glass Operations Rich Crawford. Mr. Escobar is formerly general manager of O-I Colombia and chairman of the board of O-I Peldar, an O-I joint venture. His solid management skills, marketing expertise and a proven track record of linking operational strength with marketing and innovation capabilities have led to record-setting performance for O-I's Colombian operations. Mr. Escobar has held sales, marketing and innovation-related positions with O-I in the United States, Peru and Colombia. "Miguel's proven leadership skills support the strategic needs of our North American region," said Crawford. "He has built strong teams in his previous roles. This experience, combined with his commercial and management background, will bring an essential focus on marketing, profitability and innovation to the North American team." Mr. Lopez brings extensive global operations experience to the Latin American president role, most recently serving as vice president of O-I's global manufacturing and engineering (GMEC) business unit. As head of GMEC, he successfully led a global agenda, bringing deeper collaboration, productivity and efficiency to the worldwide operations. Previously, as general manager of O-I Peru, Mr. Lopez led a successful acquisition and consolidation of that country's glass container business. "Andres' experience in Colombia, Brazil and Peru, along with his recent global leadership, will support our strategic and profitable growth priorities for the Latin American region," said Crawford. "Through his leadership of the global GMEC network, we have seen improvement in all regions, which has strengthened our company. Andres' understanding of the capabilities and needs of the region will serve us well." About O-I Millions of times a day, O-I glass containers deliver many of the world's best-known consumer products to people all around the world. With the leading position in Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and Latin America, O-I manufactures consumer-preferred, 100 percent recyclable glass containers that enable superior taste, purity, visual appeal and value benefits for our customers' products. Established in 1903, the company employs more than 23,000 people with 80 manufacturing facilities in 22 countries. In 2008, net sales were $7.9 billion. For more information, visit http://www.o-i.com/. http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050412/CLTU028LOGO http://photoarchive.ap.org/ DATASOURCE: O-I CONTACT: Stephanie Johnston, O-I Corporate Communications, +1-567-336-7199, Web Site: http://www.o-i.com/

Copyright