MOVERS AND SHAKERS

Sioux Chief Mfg. Co. announced a trio of recent personnel moves, including the promotion of Michael Foster to vice president of commercial products. He will lead a team focused on Sioux Chief’s line of commercial application plumbing products. Foster moves to this new roll from his previous position of director of national sales. Foster joined Sioux Chief in 1989 after serving in the United States Army. In his 32 years of service, he has held positions in customer service, product management and sales.

Todd Amerson, formerly of Sigma Corp. will be joining Sioux Chief as director of trench drain sales. He has been in building materials working with concrete since 2001. He has worked specifically within the trench drain Industry since 2010, working closely with engineers, architects, contractors and distributors across all divisions of construction driving brand awareness and assuring market understanding of trench drain as a viable drainage solution, with additional duties of inventory management, vendor coordination and P&L responsibilities.

Additionally, Tim Stephenson is moving onto the role of regional sales manager. Stephenson joined Sioux Chief in 2016 as customer service manager and later transitioned to the Regional Sales Support team. Stephenson will initially be working with Sioux Chief's reps in the West; Double A Sales SW, Mountain West Marketing and Paramount Sales.

Oatey Co. announced Matthew Rodgers has been promoted to vice president, customer and technical support. Rodgers joined Oatey more than six years ago as director, customer service. With more than 20 years of experience, Rodgers has extensive expertise in supporting customers at manufacturing organizations. As Oatey’s vice president, customer and technical support, he will lead Oatey’s customer service and technical functions as they expand their efforts to support customers and end users with purchasing, training, technical guidance, issue resolution and beyond.

Also, Scott Voisinet has been promoted to vice president, sourcing. Voisinet joined Oatey more than 10 years ago, serving most recently as director of North American sourcing. Voisinet is a supply chain and product management leader with more than two decades of experience. In his new role as vice president, his responsibility will be expanded to include indirect sourcing and purchasing.

Newmans Valve appointed Sara Alford to the position of president following her leadership and contributions as general manager of the company since 2016. Alford started at the original Newmans 22 years ago and has helped oversee the success of Newmans Valve and its evolution as a master distributor of industrial valves in the downstream oil and gas sector. Alford has a B.S. in management along with her Lean Six Sigma Executive Black Belt Certification.

Obituary: Garrick Dahlquist of Synergy Sales NW died Sept. 28, surrounded by family he loved after a six-year fight with cancer. "Gar battled cancer with the same tenacity and passion he brought to his work," said David Dahlquist, Garrick's brother. "His drive and commitment earned him friends and colleagues throughout our industry. Gar’s market awareness was keenly insightful and intuitive. He knew what it would take and how to get it done. Gar held his work relationships with deep regard, his business network became like a second family to him." Dahlquist started his career at Dahlquist Rush Sales, eventually becoming an owner at Western States Sales and ending his career at Synergy after its acquisition of WSSI

Environmental engineering and construction firm Brown and Caldwell has entered into a unique partnership agreement with advanced analytics solutions provider Seeq to bring significant advancements in operational analytics to the water industry.

Founded in 2013, Seeq publishes software applications for manufacturing organizations to rapidly find and share data insights to improve production outcomes, including yield, margins, quality and safety.

Utilities collect vast amounts of indiscernible data via supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems and highly instrumented facilities. Bringing Seeq’s solutions to the water sector, Brown and Caldwell will help utilities better leverage SCADA data, lab analyses, asset databases and metering data in real-time to accelerate digital transformation and positively impact the bottom line. The partnership will harness diagnostic and predictive analytics, enabling greater efficiency and deeper understanding across departments, allowing utilities to: Implement analytics to optimize existing systems and processes; detect small changes in data trends that signify larger issues before they become problems; and predict performance to enable staff to be proactive rather than reactive.

RepMasters of Denver, Colorado, is the winner of the Watts Representative of the Year and winner of The Golden Regulator Award for driving significant sales growth during the 2020 pandemic year. RepMasters has been a Watts authorized sales representative since 2016, and earlier they represented Watts’ FEBCO brand. They represent Watts in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.

Peter Brown and Chris Brown of Walmar Mechanical Sales based in Nepean, Ontario, received the Watts Lifetime Achievement Award. Both have worked tirelessly to help build a backflow program in conjunction with the city of Ottawa, among other achievements, Watts pointed out. Walmar has been a Watts authorized sales representative for three generations and represents Watts in Ottawa, Canada.

Noritz America announced Austell, Georgia-based Sunbelt Marketing will help cover the Southeast tankless water heater market. The master distributor and buy/sell manufacturers representative will work alongside Noritz’s sales team staff in that region. Formed in 1976, Sunbelt Marketing is “a well-established leader among independent sales representatives in our industry,” stated Jason Fleming, executive vice president and general manager at Noritz America. “They have a special expertise in water heating, having worked with both storage-tank and tankless manufacturers over the years. Their in-depth product and application knowledge, and their numerous industry relationships will be an outstanding complement to our existing sales team in that part of the country.”

Weil-McLain has partnered with plumbing and mechanical firm 4950 Sales to represent the company's full line of residential and commercial boilers in the Alaska region. Based in Palmer, Alaska, the company, which serves the commercial, industrial and plumbing and mechanical and construction sectors, is led by Charles Benshetler and Nick Benshetler.

DiversiTech Corp., an aftermarket manufacturer and supplier of highly-engineered components for residential and light commercial heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and refrigeration (HVACR), announced it has acquired Fresh-Aire UV, a manufacturer in the indoor air quality industry.

EVAPCO has selected Delta T Equipment as its manufacturers representative to serve the southeast Texas region. The Houston-based HVAC distributorship offers a broad array of products and services to consulting engineers, contractors and end users.

RectorSeal has released a monthly distance-training schedule for distributors and contractors in the professional trades. RectorSeal's live, distance-training classes offer the opportunity for distributors and contractors to participate in web-based training classes featuring live, interactive training environments. Professional, NATE-certified trainers lead the scheduled training classes to deliver an experience that equals a traditional on-site training class. Eliminating travel for class attendance is a time-saving feature and a customer-focused feature offered by RectorSeal. Registration for all live-distance training classes is available at www.rectorseal.com/webinars-schedule.