Judging Panel

Jeremy St. Pierre

COO, Deco Manufacturing

Over 15 years of experience in manufacturing, including industrial, aerospace, and automotive sectors. I began toolmaking at age 13 and started my own business in 2021 with the goal of helping companies with short-run production, engineering services, and Industry 4.0 solutions. I hold two patents for tooling development and most recently established a $4 million USD tooling and R&D division for GKN Aerospace, which has enabled the company to bring cutting tool manufacturing in-house to serve all of its sites across North America.

Joseph Forsyth

Joseph is the Director of Advanced Manufacturing at Intech in Athens, Alabama, and has been with the company for over 23 years. He works directly with the programming, pre-production, and prototype teams and has had the opportunity to perform hands-on tasks and learn nearly every task found in both traditional and modern machine shops. He has a wonderful wife who supports him every step of the way, and together they are raising four children.

Rick Melvin

Rick Melvin is currently the President and co-owner of Powell Tool Supply, Inc., an industrial distributor of premier cutting tool products for CNC machining that has been in business since 1948. Powell has always been a family-owned business located in South Bend, IN, serving Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio, with plans to expand into additional areas in the near future.

Rick holds a Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) degree from the University of Illinois–Chicago’s business school and has 38 years of experience in the industrial distribution industry, 36 of which have been in management and executive positions.
Powell acquired its first computer system in the early 1960s, and we began developing VMI programs in the early 1980s to combine our professional inventory management and metalworking expertise in developing the best solution for each job to meet our customers’ needs.

Powell has partnered with ZOLLER to promote its TMS Tool Management Software for VMI solutions for our customers. We have a team that is thoroughly versed in the analysis and setup of VMI and TMS solutions to provide best practices and cutting-edge technology to our partner customers. The creation of a single-source ZOLLER TMS database is at the core of this process.

Powell’s manufacturing and job shop facility customers serve a wide range of industries—including automotive, medical, aerospace, heavy equipment, and agriculture—and have benefited for many years from Powell’s expertise, knowledge, and understanding of metalworking to achieve mutual success.

Rick is deeply involved in the development of VMI and TMS tool management software programs and enjoys working with potential customers to implement processes that help them not only achieve their goals but also exceed what they thought was possible.

Cedric Hasenfratz

Cedric Hasenfratz is the North America sales and partnership manager for the ZOLLER TMS Tool Management Solutions portfolio and is passionate about bringing efficiency solutions to the manufacturing industry.

Prior to his position at ZOLLER, he served as the U.S. account manager for Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division in the software sales segment of the business.

He has extensive knowledge and experience in digital tool management and process optimization for modern manufacturing.

Felix Kanbach

Felix Kanbach is the national service manager for ZOLLER Inc. and holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Applied Sciences in Heilbronn, Germany.

In his current role, Kanbach leads the after-sales, service, and application engineering teams, ensuring the consistent delivery of top-notch service and after-sales support.

Previously, as the ZOLLER TMS Tool Management Solutions Manager, he managed the entire implementation, rollout, and training activities for the ZOLLER tool management software and hardware solutions customer base.

Dietmar Moll

Dietmar Moll is the director of sales at ZOLLER Inc. and holds a master's degree in engineering from the Cooperative State University of Stuttgart.

Moll has had a long career at ZOLLER, holding a variety of international sales roles, as well as general management positions in India, Thailand, and the United States.

Overall, he has more than 18 years of experience in the field of efficient manufacturing, with a focus on machine tool applications and helping companies understand their process capabilities through tool presetting, measurement and inspection, tool management, and automation solutions.

His experience working with companies and partners across a variety of manufacturing segments—including aerospace, oil and gas, automotive, and mining—ensures that ZOLLER is well-positioned to address real-world part production challenges, as smart manufacturing, analytics, and Industry 4.0 give rise to a new generation of possibilities in integrated technologies and advanced manufacturing practices.

Rita Conroy-Martin

Rita Conroy-Martin is the director of marketing and customer experience at ZOLLER Inc. She is multilingual and has over 25 years of international professional business experience in sales and business development, marketing, and purchasing, primarily in the manufacturing sector.

She is passionate about aligning sales and marketing amid the dramatic transformation that is rewriting the rules of how companies—both large and small—engage with prospects and customers.

In her current role at ZOLLER Inc., she combines both traditional and emerging marketing and business development strategies to educate, engage, onboard, and support customers and prospects, driving them to new levels of efficiency with ZOLLER Solutions.

She is a graduate of the University of Limerick, Ireland, with a bachelor’s degree in business and German, and a master’s degree in political science from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.