Hughes Supply Inc. (Orlando, Fla.): Thomas Starnes has been appointed to lead Hughes Supply’s maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) division. The appointment of Starnes to this newly created position comes after Hughes’ announcement on Nov. 26 of its pending acquisition of Century Maintenance Supply Inc. Starnes joined Hughes in July of 2001. Since that time, he has served as senior vice president of sales and marketing. In his new role, Starnes will be responsible for the operations of the combined Hughes and Century MRO business, which is expected to have revenues approaching $500 million in the next fiscal year, as well as government and health-care customer programs.
Border States Electric Supply (Fargo, N.D.): Border States has introduced a new management team in Albuquerque, N.M. Freddie Young joined Border States as the Albuquerque branch manager in October, bringing 35 years of industry experience. Dave Bills has been appointed sales manager, and will lead the sales team in the New Mexico markets. Bills is a 13-year Border States veteran with previous company experience as an account manager and branch manager. Additionally, Gail Quiggle has been named operations supervisor. Quiggle is a 30-year Border States veteran.
ABB (Zurich, Switzerland): ABB’s Dinesh Paliwal will take on the additional role of president, ABB Inc. in the United States effective Jan. 1. He succeeds Donald Aiken, who will retire at the end of January as president of ABB Inc. and head of the group’s automation activities in the United States. Paliwal is a member of the ABB Group executive committee and is the head of the Group’s Automation Technologies business worldwide. He has more than two decades of experience in the process and utility industries.
Berk-Tek (New Holland, Pa.) Daniel Wilhoit has been appointed Southeast regional sales manager. Wilhoit has held a variety of sales positions with companies that include Premise Networks and AMP/Tyco Inc.
BICSI (Tampa, Fla.): Christine Klauck, of Siemen’s corporate training team, has been elected U.S. Northeast region director of Building Industries Consultant Services International (BICSI). As Northeast region director, Klauck will represent the concerns of the BICSI membership in Maine; Massachusetts; Connecticut; Rhode Island; New Hampshire; Vermont; New York; New Jersey; Delaware; Maryland; Washington D.C.; Pennsylvania; and West Virginia. Klauck has been an employee of Siemon since 1994. She joins three other Siemon employees as active participants in the BICSI organization: Paulo Marin, Brazilian region director; Miguel Aldama, recently elected district chair of BICSI Mexico; and Robert Faber, vice chair of the technical information and methods steering committee.
North Coast Electric Co. (Bellevue, Wash.): Bill Oster has been promoted to Portland, Ore., service center manager. A 25-year North Coast veteran, Oster was most recently manager of the Eugene service center. Dan McCarthy, who joined the company in 1995, has been promoted to Eugene service center manager.
ExcelLine, the lighting division of Genlyte Thomas Co. (Union, N.J.): Mark Carroll has joined the company as business unit manager for ExcelLine. His prior experience includes time with Cooper Industries, Thomas & Betts and General Signal Corp. Peter Lena has been promoted to manager of sales and customer service. With more than 18 years lighting industry experience, Lena has been with ExcelLine since 2000, previously as national sales manager for the ProLinear line of products.