Electrical People: Van Meter names new CEO

May 20, 2016
Also, NAED award winners, new managers at Border States, salespeople at Service Wire and more.

Van Meter Inc. (Cedar Rapids, Iowa): Lura McBride has been appointed president and CEO by the company’s board of directors. She joined Van Meter in 2008 as V.P. of organizational effectiveness and was promoted to COO in 2010. Prior to joining Van Meter, McBride worked at Accenture in Chicago. She has a business degree from the University of Iowa and a Mini MBA from Northwestern University Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED) (St. Louis): NAED honored several industry leaders at its annual conference last week in Washington, D.C. Dick Waterman, former CEO of Rexel Inc. and a long-time veteran of the Canadian and U.S. electrical markets, received the Arthur W. Hooper Award, presented to an individual who has led an exceptional career in electrical distribution spanning many years.

John Spoor of State Electric Supply received the Distributor Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his outstanding and dedicated service to NAED and the electrical distribution industry.

Denise Keating of DATAgility, Inc. received the Associate Service Award for actively promoting and supporting the tenets and goals of NAED.

Omni Cable Corp. received the Industry Award of Merit. This award is presented in recognition of a company or individual in the electrical manufacturing business that has been exceptionally active in promoting and supporting the wholesale electrical distribution industry. Jeff Siegfried, CEO, accepted the award.

Van Meter Inc. received the Distributor Excellence in Training Award and  Littelfuse, Inc. received the Manufacturer Excellence in Training Award.

IEWC (Milwaukee, Wis.): Paul Sullivan, an industry veteran with more than 40 years of sales experience, is now senior V.P., North American Sales. Sullivan comes to IEWC from Anixter where he most recently served as V.P. of major account & global OEM account sales.

Border States Electric (BSE) (Fargo, N.D.): BSE promoted several managers over the past few weeks. Ryan Tepley was promoted to alliance manager serving Xcel Energy.  Tepley joined BSE in October 1999. In 2003, he transitioned into the emerging supply chain services department as a specialist coordinating inventory and service requirements, and in 2005, he took on the role of Northeast region supply chain services coordinator and in 2010 moved to serving Xcel Energy.

Tony Serati is now corporate customer supply chain manager. Serati has been with Border States for 13 years and most recently led the inventory team as the purchasing manager. He was previously supervisor of the strategic services team and had responsibility for alliance inventory and pricing management. He has also been a lead member of BSE’s storm response team. Stephen Major, a seven-year veteran at BSE, was named branch operations manager for the company’s Lubbock, Texas, branch. Major has been in the BSE Lubbock office for four years as an operations supervisor and before that worked as warehouse associate and warehouse supervisor.

National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW) (Washington, D.C.): Victor R. Jury, Jr., chairman and CEO, Summit Electric Supply, Albuquerque, N.M., was elected to a four-year term on the NAW Institute’s board of directors.

Directors of the NAW Institute for Distribution Excellence, NAW’s long-range research arm also elected several other distribution industry executives to the board during its recent Spring Meeting, including  a new chairman — Ron Calhoun, president and CEO of The Palmer-Donavin Mfg., Co., a distributor of residential building materials headquartered in Grove City, Ohio. He succeeds Joseph Nettemeyer, president and CEO of Valin Corp., Sunnyvale, Calif.

Service Wire (Culloden, W. Va.): The company has hired several new salespeople. Olena Popova is now serving Service Wire’s pump and irrigation customers as a sales rep. She has 10 years of experience in the industrial industry, including experience in international sales.

Phil Sykes also has joined the Service Wire team, serving as utility sales representative in Oklahoma and Texas. He has 27 years in the utility and wire industry.

 Clifton Gibson is now serving as sales rep in the Virginia market. Previously working in Service Wire’s credit office, Gibson has been trained in our products, capabilities and quality systems.

The company also announced the following sales territory updates: Scott Foster is now serving as rep in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin; Corey Jarvis is now serving as rep in Missouri and southern Illinois; Tony Holderby is now a Service Wire sales rep in eastern Pennsylvania; and Gary Sims is now business development manager for Kentucky.

Remke Industries (Wheeling, Ill.):  Greg Beaudry was appointed business development manager – Southeast and will be responsible for all sales channel activities in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.  During his career, he has focused on sales management and national accounts with industry leaders including Dialight, Graybar, Burndy, Littlefuse and Erico. Beaudry will be based in the Atlanta area.

Carlo Gavazzi (Buffalo Grove, lll.): Michael Williams is the company’s new area sales manager for southern Illinois, Missouri and Kansas. He has more than three decades of experience in the industrial automation market with an emphasis in motion control, sensing technologies and temperature control, focusing on OEMs, end users, systems integrators and specifying engineers.