Layoffs are happening at Arctic Cat and there is no stories here - I am puzzled why?
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As one of the engineers that has worked at Arctic Cat for the past 7+ years I can vouch the following:
Textron eliminated engineering at the Arctic Cat facility in St. Cloud - they gave relocation options to the 20+ engineers in St. Cloud to move down to Augusta GA, and a few engine design engineers were given option to move back to Thief River Falls.....all said no and have since left the company....
Every engineer from Arctic Cat whom worked on the Wildcat X and Wildcat XX, as well as the ATV's are now gone....Textron has interns at the Augusta location working on new designs.....and basically are just working on decal changes to put Tracker decals on the units.....the 4-stroke engine groups were disbanded and eliminated at the Thief River Falls location....The purchasing and supplier quality engineers were all let go at the Thief River Falls plant in January.....all of marketing and what little remained of finance were let go as well....The 2 stroke engine design and development group has been reduced from 14 engineers to 3 engineers....2 of which are actively pursuing other employment at this time...the 2 stroke calibration group leader left also and is now at Polaris.....there are quite a few of us here at Polaris now....
In short, the people sent from Textron to run the Dirt side and Snow side had no clue on powersports, and rather than fire the Textron employees , they instead have shelled the Arctic Cat company at both St. Cloud and Thief River Falls locations....it was sad to witness first hand the complete incompetence of the Textron management that was sent up from Augusta......Arctic Cat will be announced as sold off by Textron in Q2 or Q3 of this year..