Mike has been working in the manufacturing automation field for nearly four decades. He was introduced early on while still at The University of Akron, recruited by a college friend to help sell metal processing equipment. Upon graduation, he landed his first full-time position at Honeywell’s Industrial Services Division, where consultative sales training was an important part of their culture. He honed his account management skills providing customized support services for all types of production systems—from complex distributed controls to machine tools linked to Computer Aided Design systems, to third-party process instrumentation. This experience started his journey toward understanding the importance of support services for manufacturing environments and the tremendous value these services can deliver.
From there, he was hired by General Electric (GEC in the UK) who was the foremost technology provider for producing flat-rolled strip steel for automotive and appliance grade finishes. Mike led a global team who delivered over $200M in turnkey coordinated drive systems featuring advanced process modeling integrally tied to quality control. His broad industrial experience extends to multi-axis motion control, including the first industrial applications of 64-bit processors with advanced feed-forward algorithms.
To further expand his experience, he took a position with Emerson’s Control Techniques Drives division in Cleveland, working with project teams who delivered turnkey solutions for converting coated paper, film, and foil. His move to Apperture is both professional and personal. The professional motivation is to help Apperture tap into the enormous potential for industrial automation services engagements. Personally, golf is his game, and he now has almost year-round weather where he can hone that swing.
According to Mike, “It’s very helpful for our clients to know that I have such an extensive background with all things manufacturing related. I’ve been involved with process control pumps, valves, and field instrumentation, as well as geared motors, drives, PLCs, HMIs and supervisory controls for complete assembly lines, including vision guided robotic tooling and automated material handling. Apperture is focused on adding value in the factory automation area and I’m here to guide customers and pull the appropriate resources together to deliver what they need. Apperture is an excellent resource, a known and trusted partner, and can support every aspect of any control system.”
