Appleton Group/Emerson Industrial Automation (Rosemont, Ill.): Tim Graff is now V.P. of engineering. Reporting directly to Russ Kerstetter, president of Appleton Group, Graff will spearhead the worldwide engineering team and hold responsibility for new product development and delivery work for the flagship Appleton, O-Z/Gedney and Nutsteel brands.
Graff began his Emerson career in 1985 as a staff engineer and founding team member of Digital Appliance Controls, and also as director of new product development, V.P. of cooking products and V.P. of engineering for appliance motors and controls. In 2005, he was recognized as an Emerson Prolific Inventor. He has a BA in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
In other news at Appleton, Betty Chambers has been appointed territory account manager for key account management in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, and Joe Compton has been named director of operations planning responsible for driving improvement in the sales and operations planning and finished goods processes.
Chambers began her career at Best Power/Eaton Corp in Agency Engineering and worked at positions including national distribution manager, territory manager and technical sales manager. She was also the Midwest regional manager for Softswitching Technologies and most recently was with SAI Advanced Power Solutions, serving as Western region sales manager.
Compton has extensive work experience with both supply chain and manufacturing operations. He was operations manager for Danaher with their Videojet Technologies division, and most recently worked for Velcro USA Inc. as a business system leader and planning manager.
Ideal Industries (Sycamore, Ill.): Ian Rittof will be joining the company’s Precision Tool business unit as applications engineer. Previously product engineer for both the Precision Tools unit and Ideal subsidiary Pratt-Read, Rittof will report to Jim Falotico, business unit manager-Precision Tool. Prior to joining Ideal, Rittof worked in the Emergency Power Engineering Group at Hamilton Sundstrand Electric Systems (now UTC Aerospace Systems).
Condux Tesmec (Mankato, Minn.): Jeremy Smuder has been promoted from marketing manager to director of sales and marketing. He will now be responsible for all Condux Tesmec equipment and rental sales efforts in North America. Condux Tesmec offers a full line of stringing equipment including pullers, tensioners and puller-tensioners, as well as productivity-enhancing conductor stringing tools and accessories.
Van Meter Inc. (Cedar Rapids, Iowa): Jordan Grimm, inside sales, recently earned the designation as a Certified Electrical Professional (CEP). The CEP certification program has been developed specifically for distributors, manufacturers and others in the electrical distribution channel by the National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED). Grimm has been employed in a sales role with Van Meter since joining the company in 2011.
Robroy Industries Conduit Division (Gilmer, Texas): Snehal Patel has joined the Robroy team as accounting associate. He has been assisting Robroy Industries as a temporary associate in its accounting department for more than six months.