Gary Brown, president and general manager of Heule Tool Corporation in Loveland, Ohio, recently celebrated his 30th anniversary with the company. Brown began working for Heule in August 1989, shortly after earning his engineering degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. At that time, Heule Werkzeug AG had just established its first subsidiary in North America, which was near Detroit, Michigan (until 1994, when it was relocated to the Cincinnati area). The subsidiary was established in order to better serve customers with local technical support, as well as to grow sales of its automated deburring tools to manufacturers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Brown spent a year in Switzerland learning about the business before he returned to the U.S. to begin growing sales to North American manufacturers. Modeling Heule’s business approach of slow growth “one customer at a time,” Brown was able to quickly get a foothold in the U.S. market with Heule’s high-quality Swiss-made precision cutting tools, uniquely designed to machine both the front and back of a through-hole in one pass.
Because of the ability to streamline processes for manufacturers, reduce cycle time, and produce higher quality parts off the machine, Heule tools soon became the preferred deburring/chamfering tool for high-volume automotive manufacturers in the U.S. By the mid-’90s, Brown had also successfully established Heule in the aerospace manufacturing market.
Under his leadership for the last 30 years, Heule Tool Corporation has grown from Brown as the only full-time employee to a sales organization with 11 full-time employees and 16 independent sales agencies representing the Heule line of tools in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Heule tools are found on the production lines of major manufacturers across all industries including heavy construction equipment, oil and gas, energy, military, and defense, and medical.
Speaking on behalf of the Heule family as well as Heule Werkzeug AG, Ulf Heule congratulated Brown on the anniversary, expressing gratitude for his commitment to their family-run business. “Not only has Gary succeeded in making our products known in the manufacturing industry in North America, but as the head of Heule Tool Corporation he has also succeeded in contributing a large proportion of overall company sales. Aside from this success, what is also valued and appreciated is the long-term personal relationship we have built. This cooperation between Heule Switzerland and HTC North America is one of the main pillars on which a prosperous business relationship has developed and will continue for years to come,” he said.
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