Briggs and Stratton Picks Alabama for Shareholders Meeting

September 9 -- Briggs and Stratton Corp., which has its headquarters in Wauwatosa, has opted to hold its 2011 shareholders meeting in Auburn, Ala.

The Hotel at Auburn University will host the meeting, scheduled for Oct. 19.

Briggs and Stratton, which manufactures engines and outdoor power equipment, has a factory in Auburn, where engines for generators are produced.

“Our directors wanted to get to a plant. They haven’t been to one in a while,” Briggs and Stratton president and CEO Todd Teske told me Friday immediately before delivering a speech to about 350 people at The Business Journal’s Power Breakfast at The Pfister Hotel in downtown Milwaukee.

The plant has been especially busy given that demand for Briggs and Stratton’s generators rose dramatically as a result of Hurricane Irene, which left millions of homes and businesses along the Atlantic coast without power late last month.

Briggs and Stratton traditionally has shifted the location of its annual shareholders meeting. The company held last year’s meeting in Holland, Mich.

In 2009, the company held the meeting at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tenn. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland hosted the gathering the prior year. Former Briggs and Stratton CEO John Shiely serves on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s board of directors.

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