Established a manufacture representative and consulting agency focused on the rail road tank car, pulp/paper, steel, distribution, and OEM industrial pump industries. Provide industry consulting for research companies and their investment clientele. Reduced small and medium-sized distributors’ costs 25% on average by collaborating with an international sourcing group in Asia, which resulted in successful strategic alliances in the United States with industrial gaskets and products; company can now offer the industry’s best pricing and quality for key products, such as spiral wound metallic gaskets, molded and extruded rubber, compressed and filled polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) sheet and pump packing/mechanical seals. Developed a reputation for being a straightforward, knowledgeable, and trustworthy consultant/ subject matter expert in the industrial fluid sealing market. Working on several multimillion-dollar projects currently, including one involving a major refinery.

Served as company’s negotiator and primary contact for International Paper. Played an instrumental role in establishing sales forecast, travel and entertainment budgets, and all fiscal budgetary reports for the company. Helped the company to become among the first manufacturers in the industry to negotiate and implement a maintenance, repair, and operations corporate agreement; maintained an acceptable profit margin for contract partners. Developed a new market for the company by collaborating with DuPont Performance Elastomers Scientists/Lab to create Identa-Seal™, a new color-coded Viton® to eliminate costly and dangerous material mix-ups. Helped OEMs and lessors of rail tank cars to standardize gasket material for 98% of their tank cars’ applications when they switched from the asbestos compressed sheet. Offered large refining company 45% savings in gasket cost of goods and control over its tank car repair network’s supply chain by creating SecureTrack™ Program, a cloud-based training, and tracking program. Helped the rail market to become the company’s -growing segment, growing from almost no sales in 2001 to $2M+ in 2008 and then $4M+ in 2017.

Responsible for Sales, Marketing, Business Strategy Development, and Distribution Supply Chain. During this time we increased sales an average of 22% annually through National Account sales and implementation while maintaining an industry leading GP.

In this position for DFT I was a Regional Manager with Sales, Marketing, Business Strategy Development, and Distribution Supply Chain responsibilities. This was a great position for me to learn how to sell features and benefits as this product is a premium solution to the problems that using commodity check valves present such as water hammer. In 1996 I lived in the Chicago area and began the transition to a sister company Durabla Manufacturing Company that manufactures and markets premium gasket materials brand name Durlon. Again I was selling the solution rather than an "economy" sheet. I enjoyed this and we were successful and this success led us eventually to launch our own company which is now Gasket Resources Inc. ("GRI").