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Members of our management team are available any time to answer a question or help solve a stainless problem. Use the scroll bar for navigation to find out how best to reach our leaders. |
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Michael Stateczny
Senior Vice President, Plate Products
Mike Stateczny was appointed Executive Vice President of Plate Products for Outokumpu Stainless, Inc., effective May 1, 2004. In this position, he has overall responsibility for operations, marketing and management of Outokumpu’s Plate Products business unit located in New Castle, Indiana.
Mike has 29 years of experience in the stainless steel industry, 20 of which have been with Outokumpu in various management positions. He is a graduate of Allegheny College, with a degree in Economics. He resides in Chicago, Illinois. |
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Lou Kern
Senior Vice President, Bar Products
Lou Kern, Executive Vice President, Bar Products has over 30 years of experience with Outokumpu. Throughout his career, he has held various sales, marketing and operations positions.
Lou has been directly involved with the Bar Program since 1984, as Director of Marketing, Long Products. Most recently, he served as Vice President/General Manager |
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Bar Products, when his responsibilities included management of bar operations in Richburg, South Carolina.
Lou was appointed to his current position in August 1998, and has full commercial and operational management responsibility for Bar Products in the North America.
Lou earned a degree in Industrial Engineering in 1974 from the Newark College of Engineering. |
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Kris Podsiad
Senior Vice President, Pipe Products
Kris Podsiad was appointed Senior Vice President of Pipe Products for Outokumpu effective January 1, 2010. Kris is responsible for Outokumpu Stainless Tubular Products business within North America and is based at the Wildwood, Florida production facility.
Kris began his career in 2001 with AvestaPolarit ABE in Canada as Financial Controller. In 2003, he was appointed Managing Director of Outokumpu Stainless Tubular Products with responsibility for the North American fitting market and the production operations in Brockville, Canada and Monterrey, Mexico. In 2008, he relocated to Stockholm, Sweden with his family where he took the position of Vice President of Strategic Projects for Outokumpu Stainless Tubular Products AB. Kris is a Canadian citizen and a Certified General Accountant. He is in the process of relocating to Florida with his wife and three children. |
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Charles A. Turack
Vice President/General Manager, Coil Products
Charles A. Turack, Vice President/General Manager, Coil Products, for Outokumpu Stainless, Inc., has more than 31 years experience with stainless steel producers. He is responsible for the management and commercial activity for all Coil Products in North America. |
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Chuck began his career in 1977 as a field sales representative with Allegheny Ludlum, and rose to the position of Plate Marketing Manager in 1986. He joined Avesta Stainless as Plate Marketing Manager in 1990 and a year later added sheet marketing to his responsibilities. In 1993, following the merger of Avesta AB and British Steel Stainless, Chuck was appointed Director of Sales and Marketing for core products and was promoted to VP in 1996. In 1998, a restructuring to Product Line management presented the opportunity for a role as General Manager of Import Coil Products. The merger of Avesta Sheffield and Outokumpu Stainless and the integration of these businesses and organizations led to his appointment to his current role.
Chuck serves on the Market Development committee of the Stainless Steel Institute of North America, and is an Executive Council Member of the Metal Service Center Institutes' Specialty Metals Division.
Chuck and his wife, Becky, are empty nesters residing in Naperville, IL. Their three children are all young adults making their way in the world. |
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Poul-Erik Arnvig, Vice President, Market Development
Poul-Erik Arnvig, Vice President, Market Development, has more than 20 years of experience in the metals industry, most of which with Outokumpu or its predecessors. He began his career in 1989 as a Materials Consultant with the Danish Corrosion Center. He joined Avesta AB’s R&D in 1991 as a section leader within the Corrosion Department, and was appointed Head of the Department in 1994. In this position, he was responsible for research, management and corporate educational programs within the corrosion area. |
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In 1996, Poul-Erik transferred to the Coil Products/KBR division as a Production Development Engineer and soon served as Operational Manager for the Avesta mills annealing, cold rolling and finishing lines. Later he moved to the Hot Rolled Plate Division where he was responsible for quality and technical functions, as well as environment functions. He was appointed Product and Business Development Manager within the Hot Rolled Plate unit in 2004 and was responsible for project sales, segment development, marketing and market analysis, and research and development activities.
From 2006 through 2008, Poul-Erik served as Commercial Change Agent where he was responsible for the worldwide introduction of the “Commercial Excellence” program for the Outokumpu Group. This program established processes and ways of working in the areas of price management, key account management, and education of all commercial employees.
In 2008, he moved to the Special Coil & Plate Business Unit as General Manager of Business Development Projects, where he worked with strategic projects for Asia. He was appointed temporary Commercial Manager for the Special Coil & Plate unit, Avesta Works in October 2008, with overall commercial responsibility, while preparing his move to North America. In the middle 2009, Poul-Erik transferred to the North American organization to take on his current role as Vice President, Market Development covering all products supplied to North America. In this position, he is responsible for coordinating the North American market development activities, technical market development and service as well as R&D programs for product development. He will also act as a North American liaison towards Outokumpu’s european organizations.
Poul-Erik is a citizen of Denmark and fluent in Danish, Swedish, English and German. He is a graduate of the Danish Technical University in Copenhagen, where he earned a Master of Science degree in Chemical Engineering in 1988. He currently resides in Naperville, Illinois with his wife and twin sons.
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Melissa Ann Bales
Vice President, IT and Systems Development North America
Melissa Ann Bales began her career with Outokumpu in 1994 as a coordinator in North America's IT Department.
During her tenure with the company, she has been responsible for numerous advances in the IT Department, including the centralization of IT within the North American business units.
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Over the years, Melissa's restructuring of the IT organization has created a level of efficiency and productivity that has eliminated the need for roughly 84 percent of IT personnel.
Melissa has implemented collaborative tools such as the Intranet, Internet, and Customer Extranet. She replaced all software systems throughout North America, including new shop floor control, production planning control and order entry systems. Most recently, she coordinated and carried out the complete integration with the Outokumpu Group's infrastructure and systems.
Melissa was promoted to the position of Vice President, Information Technology & Systems Development, North America in May 2000. Prior to joining Outokumpu, Melissa worked for IBM Corporation, providing systems engineering support and consulting. |