Milwaukee Valve has announced the retirement of President and CEO Rick Giannini, effective January 20, 2023. John Labellarte, the company’s current COO, will succeed Giannini in leading the commercial, industrial and marine valve manufacturer. Giannini joined Milwaukee Valve in 1998 and successfully guided the business through challenging market conditions. His leadership transformed Milwaukee Valve into Read more
fittings
John Lebellarte
Milwaukee Valve has announced the retirement of President and CEO Rick Giannini, effective January 20, 2023. John Labellarte, the company’s current COO, will succeed Giannini in leading the commercial, industrial and marine valve manufacturer.
Giannini joined Milwaukee Valve in 1998 and successfully guided the business through challenging market conditions. His leadership transformed Milwaukee Valve into a service leader and global manufacturer. He guided the transformation of the sales organization, reinvested in manufacturing processes and equipment, and assembled the company’s overseas manufacturing operations. Giannini greatly expanded the development and growth of Milwaukee Valve’s product offering and presence in the Navy Marine market.
Giannini also developed and maintained the management team which will continue to lead the company. He dedicated time and energy to industry-leading organizations, serving as Chairman of the Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition (ACIBC) since its inception in 2004. He also sat on The American Supply Association’s (ASA) Industrial Piping Division Steering Committee and served on ASA’s Board of Directors.
New president and COO John Labellarte started with Milwaukee Valve in 1999 as General Manager. He was promoted to Vice President and COO in 2006. During his tenure, Labellarte has been instrumental in driving the company’s global manufacturing initiatives, strategic planning, product development and operational performance. His focus on continual improvement and the utilization and development of new technologies will continue to build brand value and value proposition for the company. Prior to joining Milwaukee Valve, Labellarte worked for 12 years with the Marpac & McCANNA Valve companies, serving in operations and management roles. He is extremely qualified to lead Milwaukee Valve, with 35 years of executive and operations management experience in the valve industry.
In its 121st year of business, Milwaukee Valve Company is internationally recognized for state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities and innovative new products covering a wide range of commercial and industrial applications.
Viega Works online training also will continue. Broomfield, Colo. — Viega LLC will reopen its seminar centers in Colorado and New Hampshire on Aug. 1. The centers had been closed since March 2020 due to COVID-19. Viega is reopening them with new safety measures in place, including limiting class size, cleaning stations and mask requirements Read more
Viega Works online training also will continue.
Broomfield, Colo. — Viega LLC will reopen its seminar centers in Colorado and New Hampshire on Aug. 1.
The centers had been closed since March 2020 due to COVID-19. Viega is reopening them with new safety measures in place, including limiting class size, cleaning stations and mask requirements when appropriate.
“We’re excited to reopen and welcome back our customers, contractors and distributors,” said Jason McKinnon, director oftechnical services. “We moved training online during the pandemic and that’s been successful, but it’s going to be great to work in-person again with people.”
The seminar centers are located at Viega LLC headquarters in Broomfield, Colo., and in Nashua, N.H. Each features classrooms, hand-on workshops and interactive learning displays. Viega offers courses in a variety of subjects, including pressing, design and installation, and each course is customizable to meet the needs of our customers.
In response to customer demand during the lockdown, the company created Viega Works, online sessions largely limited to single companies. These programs, which can be as short as 30 minutes, are custom designed to cover the topics customers request.
“Customers like Viega Works because it’s fast and affordable and gives them the exact information they need without requiring travel or a major time commitment,” McKinnon said. “With the reopening of our seminar centers we offer even more opportunities to engage with our technical consultants than ever before. Customers can attend in-person at one of our seminar centers or contact us to set up a unique virtual experience with content specific to their team. No matter where or how you want to connect with our experts, we will make it easy and valuable for you and your organization.”
Elkhart, Ind. — NIBCO INC. announced that its Board of Directors appointed Ashley Martin as executive vice president effective immediately. Reporting to Steve Malm, president and CEO, Martin continues in her role as corporate officer and Executive Leadership Team member; and serves as member of the Board of Directors, a position she has held since Read more
Elkhart, Ind. — NIBCO INC. announced that its Board of Directors appointed Ashley Martin as executive vice president effective immediately. Reporting to Steve Malm, president and CEO, Martin continues in her role as corporate officer and Executive Leadership Team member; and serves as member of the Board of Directors, a position she has held since 2018. She is responsible for maximizing the company’s operating performance and achieving its financial goals.
“Ashley’s business acumen, industry connections and experience have prepared her well,” said Steve Malm in announcing Martin’s appointment. “Her innate leadership qualities and strategic vision will successfully propel NIBCO forward into its fifth generation.”
Since joining NIBCO in 2012, Martin has held a variety of positions including senior vice president, sales; vice president of wholesale sales; general manager of PEX; and director of distribution and transportation.
Martin co-founded the American Supply Association Women in Industry group in 2013. She served a two-year term as chairperson, beginning in 2016.
Martin received her bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Ind. She holds a master’s degree in business administration with a concentration in strategy and operations management from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
Imagine threading or welding 4″ carbon steel pipes, 40 feet in the air. Sounds difficult, time-consuming and potentially dangerous. All those pitfalls were avoided when a crew in Michigan used Viega MegaPressG fittings to pipe a new bean-roasting facility. The result was clean, attractive piping, a quick turnaround on project time, plus happy workers and Read more
Imagine threading or welding 4″ carbon steel pipes, 40 feet in the air. Sounds difficult, time-consuming and potentially dangerous.
All those pitfalls were avoided when a crew in Michigan used Viega MegaPressG fittings to pipe a new bean-roasting facility. The result was clean, attractive piping, a quick turnaround on project time, plus happy workers and owners.
Viega recently added MegaPressG fittings in sizes 2½” to 4″ to its lineup, and Schreiner Mechanical out of Frankenmuth, Michigan, was the first to install them, putting a couple dozen of the larger-diameter fittings into a new build in Gilford.
The project that Steve Schreiner, owner of Schreiner Mechanical, and his crew went to work on was a soybean-processing facility. The soybeans are roasted and crushed, then the oil is removed and used for biodiesel fuel and other applications. The remaining product is used to feed dairy cattle, leaving zero waste.
“What the plant does is unbelievable,” Schreiner said. “It’s favorable to the economy, and the oil can be used for several different products. There’s no waste.”
At first, Schreiner Mechanical was asked to do some plumbing in the office of the plant. Then the project, and need for Viega fittings, started to grow. The contractor was tasked with creating a gas main and system
to supply the gas for the burners that roast the soybeans, plus they needed to plan for the plant’s future growth.
“The burners that are used are about 12 million BTU each, so they needed a high-pressure gas system in the plant feeding these machines,” Schreiner said. “That’s quite a large capacity, and in the future they’ll potentially have three more of these burners, so this gas system had to be designed to feed a tremendously large system.”
To do that, Schreiner Mechanical created a manifold with 4″ gas lines. Those lines work their way down to 2″ in size throughout the plant. It was the perfect place to put MegaPressG in larger-diameter sizes to work.
“Lines run throughout the plant for gas feeding the furnaces and rooftop units feeding other areas of the building,” Schreiner said. “There is probably about 500 feet of gas line with Viega fittings in this building.”
Schreiner will tell you he is “a Viega guy,” and when he began working on this project he was excited to hear that MegaPressG fittings in the larger sizes were on their way to market.
“If we’d had to thread this, it would have changed the whole philosophy on how to do things,” Schreiner said. “It would have made things 10 times more difficult, being 40 feet in the air, so we would have had to change the installation, plus it would have tripled or quadrupled the labor intensity. We’re talking about lift rentals and all things that come into play, plus the costs incurred for that, if we’d done it a different way than pressing. Threaded pipe would have been absurd.
“I’m excited that by using MegaPressG on this project, it was a time saver, a labor saver and safer than welding. The injury factor that can come up with different products is much bigger than with pressing. We would have had guys on the ground cutting and pre-fabbing pieces and then going up and down, but pressing in the air is much easier.”
In addition to providing the gas to the burners for the roasting in the plant, 2″ carbon steel lines with MegaPress fittings were also used for the oil line, moving the extracted crude oil from the beans into tanks.
Schreiner’s team is set up with Ridgid tools, and he said he feels that Ridgid and Viega together are the perfect combination.
“The Ridgid tool was a huge part of this successful application,” he said. “I’m passionate about the products I use, and when I find a good one, I stick with it.”
Viega District Manager Mike Norgan brought out the MegaPress XL PressBooster tool for Schreiner’s crew to use on the larger-diameter MegaPressG fittings, and Schreiner said it was simple to use.
“There was nothing more than smiles after using the tool,” he said. “Along with the large-diameter rings, it was easy and not cumbersome to use. Being able to press 12 or 14 large fittings in less than an hour is unbelievable.
“I tell people, ‘Look at what can be done [using Viega products]. This can be you and it’s this easy,’” he added. “Everybody’s hands are clean, there are no contaminants in the system, and there’s a lot to be said about that, having a contaminant-free system. When you have solder or threading oils or shavings, you have a high chance of contaminants, but with Viega, that chance is zero. I just cannot say enough about Viega. What we accomplished on this project with it is amazing.”
Broomfield, Colo. — Viega LLC is launching a new rewards program that will allow contractors to earn free Viega products and tools. Viega Rewards launched in early April. It’s open to small- to medium-sized contractors who use Viega products. Qualified participants will be awarded points according to annual spending tiers: Bronze (up to $10,000), Silver Read more
Broomfield, Colo. — Viega LLC is launching a new rewards program that will allow contractors to earn free Viega products and tools.
Viega Rewards launched in early April. It’s open to small- to medium-sized contractors who use Viega products. Qualified participants will be awarded points according to annual spending tiers: Bronze (up to $10,000), Silver ($10,000 to $20,000) and Gold ($20,000 and up). Rewards include free fittings, tubing, press tools, swag and training at Viega’s seminar centers.
“Viega customers are passionate about the products and extremely loyal,” said Molly Morrow, Channel Marketing Manager. “We want to reward them for the loyalty that has made Viega the industry leader in pipe fitting installation technology and we thought giving them the products they already use and enjoy would be the best way to do it.”
The program is simple. Contractors enroll at ViegaRewards.us. When they make qualified purchases of Viega products, they upload the invoices on the claims page of the rewards website or the Viega Rewards app. Invoices are reviewed and points are paid out weekly.
When they’ve earned enough points to qualify for anything from sweatshirts to press tools, they can search the online catalog on the same site and choose their reward, which will be shipped to them. Points do not expire. Members also will receive special promotions. Enroll by Dec. 31, 2020, to earn 1,000 bonus points.
Wholesalers and distributors are not eligible for Viega Rewards. To learn more about the program, visit the About page on ViegaRewards.us. The site is administered by Incentive Solutions, an Atlanta firm.