Alum from major manufacturer engages students on exec compensation after contraction

Kevin A. Barr (ILR ’81), SVP of HR [left], and Robert Brown, VP Compensation and Benefits from Terex Corporation [Right] joined Professor Kevin Hallock for his Executive Compensation class (ILRHR 6607), video-conferenced Wednesday March 30, 2011 from ILR New York City to Cornell’s main campus in Ithaca.

The executives described Terex‘s dramatic 2009 downsizing due to the global recession and the company’s strategic decision to spin-off a mining machinery business. Terex is a Connecticut-based multi-national manufacturer of heavy equipment. ILR graduate students were invited to consider whether, given Terex’s shrinking from a Fortune 250 to a Fortune 400 company, executive salaries should be frozen or even cut to remain at the 50th percentile within a peer comparison of somewhat smaller companies.

Dr. Hallock is professor of HR Studies, Chair of the Department of Labor Economics and Director of Cornell ILR’s Institute for Compensation Studies.