Steve Bentson
Steve Bentson is a hands-on, action-driven leader who excels in bringing about positive and sustainable change in improving the performance of a business. He has over 25 years of leadership experience and documented achievements as the CEO, President, COO, Vice President of Operations and Consultant of well recognized manufacturing companies with revenues of $10M – $500M – many of which were Private Equity-owned businesses.
Steve most recently completed an assignment for a growing manufacturing/construction company (> $100 M in revenue) where he worked with the Sr. Team for over a year to implement Lean principles throughout the organization. This task included developing short term and long-term goals, creating operating and strategic scorecards (KPIs), developing a joint “PSI” plan between Sales & Manufacturing to review capacity vs. demand and developing a process for creating work teams between Engineering, Sales and Manufacturing for improved management of the active client projects. Steve also worked directly with the Manufacturing team to implement lean principles thru VSM utilizing cross-functional work teams. When the Manufacturing Leader abruptly left the business, Steve stepped in to run the manufacturing operations for 6 months. Output was increased nearly 40% within the 1st 3 months and the employment level, including adding a 2nd shift, was significantly increased. Steve is now a Board Advisor to the current ownership.
Just prior to Steve’s assignment above, he held an interim Operations leadership position at Signature Systems Group (Linsalata Capital Partners). Signature is a $30M manufacturer of heavy-duty plastic flooring where he first established accountability and discipline in the operation functions & then implemented Lean teams that drove improvements in throughput, machine & labor utilization, scrap & quality. These improvements allowed the ownership to add equipment/capacity & sell the business shortly thereafter.
Prior to these consulting roles, Steve was President and CEO of Tri-Tec Seal, LLC, a $12M Edgewater Capital Partners portfolio company that makes Teflon seals. He brought a sense of urgency and leadership, professionalism, process focus, customer focus, metrics and accountability and financial reporting to the entire organization.
Prior to Tri-Tec, Steve was COO for Universal Trailer Corp, a $350M manufacturer of enclosed cargo and all-aluminum horse and stock trailers, VP/GM of Extruded Products for Werner Ladder Company, and Executive positions with several Pentair Companies, including VP-Ops of Porter-Cable Power Tools, President of Century Manufacturing and President of DeVilbiss Air Power.
Steve has an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and Bachelor of Science, Mechanical Engineering degree from Duke University. He also has a MS in Material Science/Metallurgy from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.