Tom Preece Email & Phone Number

San Diego, California, Us

At Rock West Composites our Vision is "To Inspire People to do Great Things". Our Mission is "To Make the Magic of Composite Technologies Accessible to the World". These words were chosen carefully to describe our unique position and role we play within the composites industry.We have an online eCommerce store that has a huge selection of composite tubes, plates, materials and accessories, most of which will ship within 24 hours of your order. We also perform prototyping and development (and analysis) services for composite products. And we service customers in a wide variety of industries with volume production of composite products. We are AS9100D quality certified in our San Diego, Salt Lake City and Tijuana manufacturing facilities while remaining nimble and cost-effective, finding innovative solutions to complex problems.I manage the Business Development and Program Management Teams with a focus on driving brand awareness and revenue growth for the company. Our company has grown at a rapid pace over the last twelve plus years and we look forward to continued growth in the future!

San Diego, California, Us

San Diego, California, Us

San Diego, Ca, Us

At BST Nano Carbon I led a small team focused on designing and manufacturing sporting goods made from advanced composite materials (primarily carbon fiber). Leaving Cobra to join BST was a classic “risk vs. reward” move for me… it was very much a start-up environment but success could have come in a big way. After spending about six months hiring the team, acquiring the equipment and getting things rolling, we spent about 18 months developing several new products that were very well received; including Aztek Stand Up Paddles (azteksup.com), Aztek Racquet Sports (aztekracquetsports.com), and Grandura golf shafts (Granduragolf.com).All of our products were manufactured in San Diego. Despite the early success of our products, our funding dried up and we had to shut our doors just as things were starting to take off! No regrets - we built a great team, built some great products and brands, and had a blast along the way! Lots of great lessons learned.....

Herzogenaurach, De

I left Callaway Golf in 2004 to join Cobra Golf to take on the newly created role of Director, Global Consumer Connection. The idea of joining Cobra was attractive to me because they were an “up and coming” brand, nipping at the heels of Callaway and Taylormade with a strategy of producing excellent products at an attractive price (drivers and sets of irons were $100-$200 less than the competition). Cobra operated very much as an entrepreneurial company, lean and efficient, within the security of a larger parent (the Acushnet Company). This was a marketing role responsible for managing all of the programs that drove trial of Cobra’s products, including demo events, mobile tech vans, custom fitting and professional staff (golf professionals around the world that supported Cobra by playing and fitting our equipment). It became clear to me that if you believe in your product, which we very much did, you have to “put your money where your mouth is” and facilitate trial of your product versus the very best competition. When you win (which we usually did), consumers buy. This aggressive strategy led to Cobra’s biggest sales year in 2007 of over $200 million. In spite of the global economic challenges at the time, in 2008 I was asked to lead the R&D/Product Development team and was promoted to VP of R&D. In this role I enjoyed leading a cross-functional team to bring innovative products to market on an annual basis. I also quickly learned some new strategies in change-management when Puma acquired Cobra from Titleist in early 2010. It’s tough enough to deal with that kind of uncertainly, let alone motivating a product team and keeping them focused on product launch schedules. The biggest take away from this experience is if you always look out for the best interests of your team, give credit for their success and make yourself accountable for any failures, you can lead a team through any challenge or change to go on to accomplish great things!

Carlsbad, California, Us

After starting my career in the Aerospace industry, I learned two things very quickly: (1) it’s a great place to learn how to perform highly technical analysis, and (2) it moves at a snail’s pace. Early on, I decided to rethink my career and quickly discovered that my passion was NOT about performing shear analyses on bolts. One day I was walking down the hall with a co-worker who told me she turned down what might have been a dream job for her… composites engineering in tennis racquet design (she was a composites engineer and an avid tennis player). Then it hit me … what if there are other engineering jobs in sports – specifically, golf? (I’ve been a passionate golfer for my entire life).Not long after that revelation I connected with the VP of Technical Services at Callaway Golf through a mutual friend. It was 1993, Callaway had just launched “Big Bertha”, and they were looking for aerospace engineers to begin building a world-class R&D organization. Fast-forward to the present and I can now say that I’ve been lucky to work with some of the best engineers and product developers in the world. Believe it or not, golf engineering can be more complicated than aerospace/structural engineering because of the highly non-linear aspect of the club head – ball collision. Much of the engineering performed in golf product development would have been over my head as a young graduate in aerospace engineering starting out! The golf industry afforded me the opportunity to combine two things I love: golf and engineering/analysis. My message to all is to look past traditional engineering channels and to know that it’s possible to pursue one’s passion within the engineering world – even if that passion involves sports!

Bethesda, Md, Us

M.S., Aerospace Engineering

B.S., Civil Engineering