Newsmakers

Comings and Goings

Apogee Enterprises

Apogee Enterprises Inc.’s board of directors has named Ty R. Silberhorn as the company’s new chief executive officer (CEO) and a member of the board of directors. Silberhorn joins Apogee from 3M, where he was senior vice president of transformation, technologies and services. This appointment follows Joseph F. Puishys’ planned retirement.

Silberhorn is the fifth CEO in Apogee’s 71-year history. He joins Apogee following over 20 years at 3M, where he worked to reshape 3M’s efforts in business process and digital transformation. Prior to this position, he held several global business unit leadership roles, serving as vice president and general manager for divisions within three of 3M’s business groups.

Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope®

Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope® (OBE), has appointed Liz Haggerty as president. She succeeds Nathan Creech, who moves into a global leadership role within parent company CRH. Haggerty was named president of OBE’s architectural glass and metal division in January 2020.

Haggerty is a trained metallurgical engineer with extensive experience leading the manufacturing of highly customized as well as standard building products. Her career spans 30 years in the HVAC industry where she has held numerous leadership positions in engineering, operational excellence, sales and distribution. Prior to OBE, she oversaw the unitary HVAC business segment for Johnson Controls.

Kudos

Accura Systems Celebrates Special New U.S. Citizen

Hector Garcia is a project manager at Accura Systems in Sunnyvale, Texas. He’s also a husband, a father, a college graduate and now he’s a U.S. citizen. Garcia emigrated from Mexico to the U.S. with his parents as a child. Since then he has spent nearly two decades growing his career in the glass industry. With the support of his family and an industry mentor, Garcia began the long journey to citizenship, which he completed last October.

Garcia’s first job in the glass industry was in 2003 at Vistawall, which is now part of Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope®. Garcia worked at the company for eight years. During that time, his mentor, Todd Staley, encouraged him to get his GED and, later, his associate’s degree in management. Staley left Vistawall to work for Acralight Skylights and Garcia joined him. However, the Texas location closed down in 2013, leaving Garcia without a job. Staley reached out to Mike Rubner, chief operating officer at Accura Systems,
and asked if he could help Garcia.

Garcia began working in the fabrication area of Accura’s manufacturing group. He rose through the ranks quickly, becoming the second shift supervisor while raising three children with his wife, Mary, who also works at Accura, as does Garcia’s brother, Abel. During this time, both Mary and Garcia were attending college classes at night.

“After excelling in manufacturing leadership, Hector moved into the office as a project coordinator where his passion and drive was appreciated by customers, vendors and fellow employees alike. In 2017, Hector again rose to the occasion and was promoted to project manager,” says Rubner.

Promotions

Basco Manufacturing Company

Basco Manufacturing Co., a manufacturer of glass shower doors and fabricated glass products based in Mason, Ohio, has promoted Donald “JR” Grau as vice president of national glass sales and installation services. He has been a member of the company’s leadership for 29 years, and has served as director of installation services, Midwest regional sales manager and national glass sales manager.

Associations and Events

AGMCC

The Architectural Glass and Metal Certification Council (AGMCC) has elected Rowan Georges to its 2021 board of directors. Georges is an associate director at the New York office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), where he has worked for more than 15 years. The board of AGMCC is made up of interested stakeholders from across the glazing community, according to the organization.

Glass Performance Days

Jorma Vitkala retired as founder and former chairperson of Glass Performance Days (GPD) in September 2020, and is now working part time as a senior advisor. He will support the GPD team, which has assumed the everyday organization of the upcoming event. Marko Mökkönen is now the GPD conference manager and will be working with Brown Onduso on future events.

NFRC

The National Fenestration Ratings Council has elected three members to the board of directors for the 2021 term. The board members are: Maggie Kelley, built environment project manager at Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance; Mahabir Bhandari, building equipment scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory; and Neil Burning, vice president of technical resources and government relations at the International Code Council.

Appointments

Kensington Glass Arts

Kensington Glass Arts Inc. (KGa), a Mid-Atlantic glass manufacturer, commercial glazier and distributor of architectural glass, announced that John Reichlin is its new president. Reichlin has more than 30 years of financial and management experience working with middle-market companies in the Mid-Atlantic region. He recently joined KGa as its chief
operating officer, and prior to that was president of an East Coast fresh food products manufacturer and distributor for eight years.

NSG Group

Tony Fradgley, a senior executive officer with Nippon Sheet Glass (NSG), has been appointed to the newly created role of chief transformation officer. In addition, Satoshi Ishino, also a senior executive officer, was named head of the Creative Technology Strategic Business Unit in addition to the roles he already holds as chief development officer and head of the Business Innovation Centre. NSG named Hiroshi Nishikawa, a senior executive officer, to transformation director for Asia and head of the Fine Glass Division.

NSG Group also announced the resignation of two executive officers, Clemens Miller, director, representative executive officer, executive vice president and chief operations officer (COO), and Jochen Settelmayer, senior executive officer and head of the architectural glass strategic business unit. Shigeki Mori, director, representative executive officer, president and CEO, will act as COO in the interim. Munehiro Hosonuma assumes the role as senior executive officer and head of the architectural glass strategic business unit upon Settelmayer’s departure.

Tubelite Inc.

Dean Seger is Tubelite Inc.’s new vice president of integrated supply chain in Walker, Mich. Seger brings more than two decades of operations leadership, most recently coming from Western Window Systems. He began his career there as the continuous improvement director before being promoted to vice president of manufacturing, then to his most recent position as vice president of operations.

New Hires

Hartung Glass

Hartung Glass Industries has hired Paul Mahedy, a 35-year veteran of the glass industry, as chief operating officer (COO). Mahedy joins Hartung following several years serving in a range of leadership positions in the glass industry, most recently as COO of Trulite Glass & Aluminum Solutions. Prior to that, he held a variety of positions at Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope®, including industrial engineer and general manager.

Sun Metals Systems

David Hewitt has been hired as Sun Metals Systems’ new vice president of sales. Hewitt is an industry veteran with a broad range of experience in selling architectural aluminum systems, according to the company. He will relocate to Tampa, Fla., and will be based out of Sun Metals Systems’ corporate office.

Virginia Glass Products

Virginia Glass Products and Virginia Mirror Company have hired Jeremy Hoy and James Wright. Both join the company with backgrounds in the glass and glazing industry. Hoy assumes the role of national product manager focused on laminated glass and mirrors, while Wright takes on the position of corporate sales manager. Hoy joins the organization after several years in management at Trulite, while Wright previously held high-level sales positions with Glass Coatings and Concepts and ran his own firm, Deco Glass Solutions.

All Glass & Windows

Florida-based glazing contractor All Glass & Windows (AGW) has hired AJ Carr as senior project manager. He joins AGW with more than 30 years of experience, being a third-generation contract glazier who has worked his way up the ranks to management.

GGI

Jonathan Denaker now represents General Glass International (GGI) in the Northeast region. Denaker has 13 years’ sales and management experience in the building products and construction industry. Most recently, he worked for Materials Inc. specializing in material surfaces and other specialty products for commercial applications.

Bavelloni

Ryan Hudgins has joined Bavelloni America’s team as a territory sales manager. He is responsible for Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois and Wisconsin.

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