As Ahaus Tool and Engineering, Inc. builds from a record year, our focus turns to aligning our people and their strengths to opportunities for growth. In the last calendar year, Ahaus increased our headcount by 12 people, growing our total staff to 108.
With that in mind, we are pleased to announce several upcoming internal transitions and new hires.
Effective January 1st, Brian Keiser will transition from Director of Sales to the role of Director of Operations. In this role, Brian will oversee both the manufacturing and engineering functions. Hired in 2023, Brian brings a wealth of experience within manufacturing and organizational leadership, previously as the Vice President of Sales and Operations at Osborn North America.
With Brian making the transition to lead Operations, Joe Becknell will assume the role of Sales Manager. Joe was previously our Southwest region Sales Engineer and brings 20 years of sales experience to this role, including seven years at Ahaus. We are excited about Joe being able to focus his time on leading the Sales Team comprised of our Sales and Applications Engineers.
We are also pleased to welcome our new Engineering Manager, Brad VanWinkle. Brad joined Ahaus on December 9th with more than 10 years of experience in managing different phases of engineering and operations at Osborn, Henny Penny, and Stant.
Mark Price, who was previously our Engineering Manager, will move into his new role as Director of Quality, focusing on our quality initiative while continuing to manage the Project Engineering Team as well. Vice President Jeff Sheridan says, “With this new role, we believe that Mark’s many years of experience in engineering, operations, and quality systems will be the perfect combination to build upon the culture and reputation of quality here at Ahaus and ensure we meet and exceed our customers’ expectations moving forward.”
Effective January 6th, Jesse Coffin will transition into the position of Apprentice Coordinator. Jesse has been with Ahaus for almost three years as a CNC Machinist, but moving forward he will work part-time helping to improve and lead our Apprentice training program, while also becoming a full-time faculty member at a local community college. We are excited to continue to work alongside Jesse while strengthening our partnership with the local college as well.
“We have been focusing on developing team members to assume new roles and positions. These new promotions, hires and changes will strategically put key people in positions that will drive the next level of growth at Ahaus,” says President Kevin Ahaus.