PROFILES OF OFFICERS

Paul Clark – President

University of Rhode Island - B.S.  Geology / Post-Graduate Mechanical Engineering

Industry Experience: 
Paul has been involved in the PET bottle manufacturing and bottling industry since its origin in the late 1970’s with the Amoco Container Company.  He has held a variety of technical positions including Hydraulic Design Engineer, Project and Process Engineer, Plant Manager, Pacific Rim Quality Manager for Plastic Packaging and Director of Engineering.  Paul’s responsibility over the last twenty years has been focused on facility design and project management; having designed and managed hundreds of beverage and plastics installations around the world.  He combines his facility engineering experience with extensive hands on capabilities on all types of equipment.  Paul continues to push toward improved performance-based facility design decisions by applying statistical DOE studies of plant support systems.  He is also a recognized authority on high-speed in-line handling and accumulation of beverage bottles, with numerous papers and training programs having been published and presented at technical conferences such as Novapack, ISBT, PPMI and BevPlants.

Ken Stratton – Vice President

Industry Experience:
Ken has been involved with manufacturing in the packaging industry for 19 years.  He is an officer of the company and takes a management role in nearly all of PTS’ capital projects.  He has held positions as a project engineer, a line controls engineer, and as a packaging equipment sales engineer.  Ken is respected in the company and in the industry as being reliable and knowledgeable in all areas of design.  As a result, he generally takes lead responsibility for some of PET Terra’s largest projects; with project budgets in the tens of millions of dollars. He has also taken responsibility for development of tools for feasibility studies, cost modeling, prediction of mechanical line efficiencies and project budget tracking.  These cost calculation tools are now widely used by several major soft drink, water and juice bottling companies.

Cliff Williams – Vice President

Southern Illinois University - Associate in Industrial Electronics

Industry Experience:
Cliff has over 25 years experience in plastic bottle manufacturing and is one of the three founding partners of PTS. He has held positions as Shift Supervisor, Production Manager, Plant Manager, Corporate Technical Manager, and Process Engineer. At his last position prior to joining PTS Cliff was responsible for Technical and Process engineering for one of the largest PET converters in the world. Cliff’s primary focus prior over the 18 years prior to joining PTS concentrated primarily on container processing.  Clients and equipment vendors consider him one of the top process engineers in the PET industry. In his ten years at PTS, Cliff has translated his hands on process and equipment expertise into exceptional Autocad design skills and project management skills.  He has succeeded as the project manager for numerous multimillion dollar projects with plastics converters and bottlers.  His combination of process expertise and design expertise make him one of PTS’ most effective project managers and multi-disciplinary design engineers.

Steve Gracek – Senior Industrial Engineer

University of Colorado - Manufacturing Engineering
Industry Experience:
Steve has more than twenty years experience in facility engineering in the plastic bottle manufacturing industry, with prior experience in fabrication and equipment design.  He has been responsible for project management and design at two of the largest North American suppliers of PET and polyolefin containers.  Steve has traditionally focused primarily on the design of downstream empty bottle handling systems including conveying, labeling, unitizing and secondary packaging.  Steve has also had overall responsibility for project management on a number of highly successful green field installations.  His intimate hands-on understanding of line design and operation consistently results in smooth start-ups and high line efficiencies.  Clients and equipment vendors value his common sense approach and his tenacity in solving problems.

Gary Fickel – Senior Mechanical Engineer

University of Technology - B.E. Mechanical Engineering Sydney, Australia

Deakin University - Grad. Business Administration Melbourne, Australia

Industry Experience:
Gary originally joined PTS in 1999 from Coca-Cola Amatil in Australia.  Gary was responsible for the detailed engineering and project management for the largest injection and blow molding plant in the southern hemisphere in King’s Park, NSW.  He was also responsible for six other blow-molding plants in Australia and New Zealand.  Prior to joining Amatil, Gary was responsible for numerous injection and blow molding projects during his employment at Southcorp and Smorgon’s Plastics.  Since joining PTS, he has served as the lead design engineer for central infrastructure design for eight green field filling plants for the some of the largest bottlers of spring water in North America, in addition to providing the design for numerous plastic packaging plant expansions.  Gary applies a rare balance of engineering theory, hands-on capability, project management skills and design skills.  He is also the lead individual in PTS’ continuing efforts to improve our three dimensional CAD design capabilities.  He is highly respected in the plastic bottle manufacturing and filling industry for his knowledge of utility systems and beverage process design.

Casey McBryde – Senior Utilities Engineer

Georgia Institute of Technology - Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering

Industry Experience:
Casey McBryde joined PTS from a major mechanical contracting firm where he was responsible for design of utility systems and mechanical structures; including water pumping systems, controls, boiler systems, refrigeration systems, compressed air systems and structural design.  He is a multi-faceted project manager with hands on experience in fabrication and mechanical installation.  Casey’s experience as a contracting firm project manager provides a unique insight into evaluating and improving the bidding process, which translates into greater value and savings for our clients during project implementation.

Rob Collier – Senior Electrical Engineer

University of Missouri - Rolla, Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering

Industry Experience:
Rob Collier is a respected electrical engineer in the packaging industry, with a strong background in primary power design, power distribution, control programming and SCADA systems design.  Rob has many years experience in the food and beverage industry with a broad range of experience including Line Electrician/Mechanic, Maintenance Manager, Electrical Engineer, Project Manager, and Construction Manager.  This broad range of experience has given him both hands on expertise and theoretical background on all phases of electrical design and project management.  Rob worked along-side PTS designing and managing multi-million dollar projects with one of the world’s largest PET bottled water manufacturers.  Rob has proven that he has both a mechanical and electrical understanding of all the systems related to vertically integrated packaging and filling facilities.  He also has previous experience as a maintenance engineer in the dairy industry and is intimately familiar with sanitary process design, installation, maintenance and operation for dairy and low acid food and beverage applications.

Chris Shorter –Controls Engineer

Georgia Institute of Technology - Bachelor of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Industry Experience:
Chris’ multi-disciplinary capabilities in electrical controls design, power distribution, facilities design and industrial design are the key to his success as a design engineer and project manager   He brings years of experience in the bottling industry working on electrical and mechanical packaging line design.  Chris' previous projects include automation and controls engineering for a number of major projects with such high-profile customers as Anheuser-Busch and Coca-Cola.  He is equally comfortable at his CAD station or on the plant floor.  Chris excels under pressure and is willing to put in the effort to see the most difficult tasks through to completion.

Chris Kulp– Mechanical / Food and Beverage Process Engineer

Rochester Institute of Technology - Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering

Industry Experience:
Chris Kulp worked jointly with PTS for years as a project engineer for one of PTS’ major clients; Mott’s/Cadbury Beverages.  He left Mott’s to work outside of the bottling industry before recently joining PTS.  Chris has a strong background in both bottling and in-line plastic bottle manufacturing.  He has worked as a design engineer, a production manager and a maintenance manager.  Chris’s practical knowledge of blow molding and bottling operations makes him highly qualified for design of in-line blow fill facilities and infrastructure.  Chris is High Acid Critical Control Point (HACCP) certified by AIB and CCP certified by the FDA and Better Process Control certified by Cornell University.  He has extensive experience and training in operations, quality control, microbiological control, design and maintenance for aseptic processes, low acid processes and high acid processes.

Matthew Stanley – Senior Project Manager/Mechanical Engineer

United States Military Academy (West Point) - Bachelor of Science General Engineering
Industry Experience:
Matthew recently joined PTS from Cott Beverages.  He has extensive experience in design and operation of water and CSD filling lines, blow molding systems, process and syrup room systems and secondary packaging systems.  Matthew’s project management experience is based on current duties with PTS and previous duties with Cott Beverages and Frito Lay in the private sector, plus six years of military duty as a Captain in the US Army in command of a Pershing Nuclear Missile Team and as a Battalion Fire Support Officer.  Matthew’s first assignment with PTS has been as the project and design manager for the first direct in-line blow molding and hot filling operation for isotonic beverages in the United States.

Patryk Stankiewicz – Senior Mechanical Engineer

Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada - Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering

Industry Experience:
Patryk recently joined PTS from Nestle Waters North America, where he served as utilities design manager.  He was responsible at NWNA for managing of the design of all utility systems including compressed air, chilled and cooling water, steam and natural gas for all new projects in North America.  Prior to his position at Nestle, Patryk had worked as the utility design manager for an engineering firm and prior to that for twelve years in operations and engineering for a Canadian plastic packaging converter and bottling company.  Patryk is highly respected in the bottling industry for his integrity, leadership and knowledge of bottling plant facilities design and operation.

Thomas Christian – Mechanical Engineer, P.E.

Georgia Institute of Technology - Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering

Industry Experience:
Tom recently joined PTS from a small engineering firm specializing in the design of steel structures for commercial and industrial buildings and for piping and other mechanical installations.  His initial focus at PTS is on the design of structural steel supports for equipment, piping and electrical services as he is becoming proficient at the associated design of utility piping and equipment systems.

Kyle Wilson – Senior Designer

West Central Technical College – Carrolton, GA

Industry Experience:
Kyle worked for as a designer and draftsman at a steel construction fabrication company in the Atlanta area prior to joining PTS.  He has worked his way up at PTS from a drafting position to a senior designer position through constant improvement in his knowledge of the systems being designed by PTS.  Kyle has also displayed an impressive proficiency in three dimensional design and modeling.  He is one of the key resources in developing 3D design capability with all of PTS’ engineers.  The complete conversion of PTS’ facility design from 2D to 3D is a critical component of our recent growth and Kyle has been essential to maintaining that competitive advantage over all other engineering firms in our industry.