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Manufacturing 2025: PARKINSON, JOHN
A subsidiary of Duroc AB, a Sweden-based investment firm that invests in industrial manufacturers, Drake Extrusion produces polypropylene-based colored filament yarn and staple fiber used for home furnishings and automotive manufacturing. The company established its roots in Henry County in 1995, and Parkinson has served at the helm since 2001. In 2021, Drake acquired North […]
Manufacturing 2025: SHIM, PATRICK
Gov. Glenn Youngkin, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and other officials gathered with Shim in Chesapeake in April to break ground for LS GreenLink USA’s roughly $700 million advanced cable manufacturing and port facility. The site will include a 750,000-square-foot production facility with the state’s tallest structure: a 660-foot tower needed to support the production of […]
Manufacturing 2025: BASSETT, DOUG
Since 2012, Bassett has served as president of Vaughan-Bassett, marking the fourth generation to lead the family company, which opened in 1919. Its brands include Vaughan-Bassett Furniture, Artisan & Post and Laurel Mercantile Co. Home by Ben & Erin Napier. Vaughan-Bassett also bills itself as the nation’s largest manufacturer of wooden bedroom furniture for adults. […]
Manufacturing 2025: COLLIER, ROB
In early 2023, Danaher, a Washington, D.C., conglomerate encompassing biotechnology, diagnostics and life sciences businesses, announced plans to spin off its environmental and applied solutions segment into a separate public company headquartered in Massachusetts and called Veralto. A subsidiary of Danaher since 2007, Glen Allen-based ChemTreat is now part of Veralto, and Collier is now […[...]
Manufacturing 2025: MOORE, JON
Since 2019, Moore has served as president and CEO of Philip Morris USA, the largest cigarette company in the United States with brands that include Marlboro and Virginia Slims. Morris has worked for parent company Altria Group since 2003, serving as vice president of its heated tobacco products division and director of marketing for NuMark, […]
Manufacturing 2025: GOTTWALD, THOMAS E. ‘TEDDY’
NewMarket is the parent company of subsidiaries that specialize in petroleum additives and critical performance additives used in space launch and military defense applications. Gottwald, whose grandfather Floyd Gottwald’s Albemarle Paper Manufacturing purchased the Ethyl Gasoline Corp. in 1962, is a member of one of the nation’s wealthiest families. Ethyl, now called NewMarket, now ha[...]
Manufacturing 2025: LEDESMA, DAVID
Ledesma became the plant manager of DuPont’s Spruance site in 2021 after serving in the same role at its facility in Buffalo, New York. Built in 1929 to manufacture rayon, DuPont’s Spruance site sits along the James River and is the largest of the company’s manufacturing facilities worldwide. Ledesma manages more than 2,000 employees, some […]
Manufacturing 2025: GIFFORD JR., WILLIAM F. ‘BILLY’
Joining the company at its subsidiary Philip Morris USA in 1994, Gifford became CEO of the Fortune 500 tobacco products manufacturer in 2020. Altria’s operating companies, in addition to Philip Morris USA, are U.S. Smokeless Tobacco, John Middleton, Helix Innovations and NJOY, as well as Horizon Innovations, its majority-owned joint venture with JT Group. In […]
Manufacturing 2025: JAIN, PRABHAT
Jain has been CEO of Virginia Transformer, the continent’s largest U.S.-owned power transformer manufacturer, since 1982 — 14 years after he arrived from India, mechanical engineering degree in hand. Over the past four decades, he has grown the company from 35 employees to more than 2,700 across six plants. Jain started as a machine shop […]
Manufacturing 2025: FRIEDRICH, KAI
Friedrich joined Liebherr’s U.S. operations in 2021 as its managing director. In February, the Swiss equipment manufacturer announced Hirohito Imakoji has also been named a managing director of Liebherr USA and that he will work jointly with Friedrich, who is also the company’s managing director and divisional director of earthmoving and material handling technology. Out […]
