GRAY MFG - Key Persons
Also an original Gray Manufacturing employee, Donna has about two and a half decades of accounting experience. She has held her current position at Gray since 2013.
Prior to Gray, Donna worked at a CPA firm in Mooresville, NC for eight years. She received her accounting training from performing personal and corporate tax returns and bookkeeping.
Evan has worked at Gray Manufacturing for more than five years over two different stints. He returned to the company in 2017 as manufacturing engineer and rose to quality engineer shortly thereafter. In July 2021, Evan received another promotion to Operations Manager.
He has nearly two decades of experience working as an engineer designer and CNC programmer. While earning his two-year mechanical engineering degree, Evan graduated first in his class at Catawba County Community College.
Job Titles:
- CEO
- President & CEO of Compass Precision
Gary is President & CEO of Compass Precision, Gray's parent company. He joined Compass in October 2019 in conjunction with its acquisitions of Advanced Machining & Tooling, LLC, Quality Products & Machine, LLC, and Tri-Tec Industries, LLC. He previously served in general management roles for several metal manufacturing firms, including Coining, a precision metal stamping firm that grew from $13 million to $65 million in revenue over seven years while Gary was CEO.
Earlier in his career, he was General Manager of Dynamet's Forged Products Division, a Pittsburgh-based titanium CNC machining & forging shop where he learned many of the successful strategies being employed at Compass. Gary graduated from Cornell University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.
After beginning his career in technical sales, Jacob started working in manufacturing on a full-time basis in 2015. He joined Gray Manufacturing as general manager in Aug. 2021. Previously, Jacob served as Manufacturing Project Manager at Columbus McKinnon.
Jacob graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette with a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering and a minor in business management. Compass views his constant desire for improvement as a vital piece of Gray's future growth.
Job Titles:
- VP Sales at Compass Precision
Jim became VP Sales at Compass Precision in March 2021, moving from Orange County in Southern California. He has spent 25 years in the machining and fabrication industry. In his previous role, Jim served in a similar capacity as VP of Sales for Crenshaw Die & Manufacturing.
On two different occasions in his career, Jim started his own manufacturing company. His second venture - CJ Precision Manufacturing - grew to $1 million in sales in its first three years. In 2015, he sold the company to Crenshaw, where he worked for nearly six years before joining Compass. Jim graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from UCLA.
Like Evan, Kyle has worked two separate stints at Gray Manufacturing. He was one of the original employees in 2013 and stayed three years before leaving for an opportunity at Stewart-Haas Racing.
Coming back to Gray in January 2020, Kyle referred to his return as "a no-brainer" because of the opportunity to work with the company's new equipment and machinery. Kyle has more than 15 years of experience in CNC machining.
Luke started his career as a Lube Technician, then quickly made a career change to pursue manufacturing. After earning an Associates in Automotive Systems Technology, he graduated from UNC at Charlotte with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and minor in Mathematics. During his final year of school, Luke served as an intern at Curtis-Wright Aviation.
Joining Gray in 2021, Luke initially became Quality Engineer before the company officially named him Quality Supervisor in Jan. 2022. During the year prior to working at Gray, he was a vital part of the transition into hand sanitization production at Chematron Speciality Chemicals.
Paul joined Compass in February of 2020 as Vice President & Chief Financial Officer. Like Gary, he has a strong CNC machining industry background. Paul worked for Paragon Metals from 2016 through early 2020, most recently as the firms' Chief Financial Officer. Paragon machines tight-tolerance, precision-engineered metal components for the automotive industry.
Previously, he served in various accounting and finance roles for several other Charlotte-area manufacturing companies including IntraPac International, a speciality packaging company manufacturing plastic, laminate, tin and aluminum products. Paul has a BS in Business Administration and an MS in accounting, both from Georgia Southern University.