Mercury Racing general manager Erik Christiansen left the company on March 9 to pursue an opportunity outside of the marine industry, according to a media release from Mercury Marine. Christiansen has run the racing business for Mercury since taking over for Fred Kiekhaefer in 2013 and has spent more than 20 years at the company.
In a story posted by OffshoreOnly.com Christiansen revealed his next employer.
“I am going to be working for (well-known offshore racer) Bob Bull,” Christiansen said. “He has several companies and I’ll be learning something different—I’ll be out of the marine industry—while using all the management stuff I applied at Mercury Racing for the past five or six years. It’s a pretty exciting opportunity. Since I became general manager, I’ve been more involved in the management of the business and overseeing projects than I have with actual hands-on engineering. I’ll be more into managing the business side of stuff for Bob’s companies than anything else such as engineering.”
Christiansen has been instrumental in the successful launch of many of Mercury Racing’s most well-known products including the Mercury Racing Verado 400R FourStroke outboard and the Mercury Racing quad-cam four-valve (QC4v) turbocharged engine series.
Steve Miller, Director of Marketing, Sales and Service for Mercury Racing, has been named interim general manager. Miller has been with Mercury since 1993 and has been a part of the success of the Mercury Racing program over the past three years. Prior to that, Miller supported the launch of Mercury mainline outboard projects including the FourStroke 150 and the Mercury Verado platform.
