Viking Electric Supply/Sonepar (Minneapolis, MN): After 42 years at Viking Electric Supply, Greg Hames will be retiring on July. He has spent his entire career at Viking, starting as a truck driver and finishing as president and CEO. Greg’s leadership, influence and drive, and his ability to connect and collaborate with associates, customers, and suppliers has helped build Viking into a market leading organization.
Stacy Stanslaski, currently the COO of Viking, will become president of Viking Electric Supply, effective July 1. Stacy has worked closely with Hames and Viking’s leadership team over the past 16 years, and has significantly contributed to Viking’s operations and growth strategy. Her prior positions at Viking include manager of special projects, sales operations manager, director of human resources and controller.
“Stacy’s strong background in all these aspects of the organization make her a well-rounded leader to take over the legacy of operational excellence at Viking. On behalf of Sonepar USA, I want to congratulate Greg on his well-deserved retirement and Stacy on her new role at Viking,” said Halsey Cook, president of Sonepar USA, in a press release announcing the news at Viking Electric Supply.
Buckles-Smith Electric (Santa Clara, CA): Nicole Knee has joined the company‘s Account Management team where she will be building customer relationships with accounts out of the new Santa Rosa location. Beginning her career in the electrical industry in Honolulu, Hawaii, she has a background working with federal government, state, city, commercial and end-user accounts.
In other news at the company, Ethan O’Leary is now product specialist. He will work out of Buckles-Smith Electric’s Sacramento branch. Starting in the electrical industry working alongside his father, O’Leary has been building electrical panels and circuit boards since age sixteen. He has experience in industrial controls, service and engineering fields.
Targetti Sankey (Florence, Italy): This lighting fixture manufacturer is under the new ownership of the Idea Capital Funds SGR. In addition to the new ownership, the Fund has appointed Piercarlo Gramaglia, as the new CEO and Massimo Manelli, former CEO of Artemide, as president.
Champion Fiberglass (Spring, TX): Kent Brown was named regional sales manager, joining two other sales managers in running the Champion Fiberglass’ manufacturers’ sales representatives organization. Brown brings with him over thirty years of sales experience within the electrical industry and is a former principal of Pinnacle Sales in Utah. Brown will relocate to Texas and work out of the company’s Spring, TX factory location beginning May 15.
Omni Cable (West Chester, PA): Tony Aimi has joined the company as the Northwest and Northern California Regional Manager. An industry veteran, Aimi brings with him over 30 years of experience, most recently as Western regional vice president at Thomas & Betts. Aimi received his BA from Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas.
Elemental LED (Emeryville, CA): April Mitchell has been promoted to senior vice president of customer experience & marketing. Mitchell will continue to report to CEO Chris Le Blanc and will be responsible for leading Elemental LED’s global marketing, branding and communication initiatives, customer support and technical services. Additionally, she will lead the company’s efforts in product life cycle management, field and channel marketing, and training programs. Mitchell’s prior role within Elemental LED was vice president of marketing.
Mitchell has more than 20 years of experience in corporate marketing, brand management, public relations, events, channel development, communications and customer experience programs in leadership roles with a variety of global software and technology companies as well as non-profit associations.
NAI (Scottsdale, AZ): This manufacturer of end-to-end connectivity solutions for high-performance systems in industrial, telecom, data and medical industries appointed Jason Porter as director of engineering and continuous improvement. In his new position, He will report to CEO Jon Jensen. Porter will manage all product development and application engineering, in addition to the company’s global quality management system and business management processes.
Porter has more than 20 years of experience in engineering, sales, manufacturing and strategic planning for global operations and worldwide markets and was most recently director, global technology development with PKC Group, Farmington Hills, MI. Prior to that he held several executive positions at PKC successor companies AEES, Inc and Alcoa/AFL., also in Farmington Hills, MI, and which included a term as General Manager in Shanghai, China.
National Association of Independent Lighting Distributors (Princeton Junction, NJ): A post at www.edisonreport.net said Robin Watt of C.N. Robinson Supply in Baltimore has been named as NAILD’s president. The post also said, “Joining Watt on the NAILD board executive committee are president-elect Cory Schneider of Lighting Unlimited, Chandler, AZ, secretary/treasurer Spencer Miles of Pacific Lamp & Supply, Seattle, and immediate past president Rebecca Phillips of Professional Lighting, Greensboro, NC.
