Steve Bentson, Consultant

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General Expertise

Steve Bentson excels in bringing about positive and sustainable change in improving the performance of a business, whether it’s a distressed business, a start-up business or a business that just wants to go from being good to being great.

As the former President and/or COO of various manufacturing businesses, Steve has successfully addressed improvement through the use of Lean & Six Sigma, process change, organizational change and, most importantly, developing a sense of purpose and urgency throughout the organization.

Steve will drive the organization to develop short-term and long-term actions that are consistent with the organization’s strategies and goals and then participate with the entire team to relentlessly complete these actions and improve the overall business performance.

Individual Areas of Expertise

• Assessment of what is driving the performance of a business, whether it be product, market, customer or operational in nature, identifying opportunities for improvement and putting action plans into motion; concurrently developing metrics to track performance and hold the process champions accountable.
• Leadership coaching and team facilitation at all levels of the organization.
• Operation’s management and improvement through Policy Deployment, Lean, Six Sigma, Process changes and resource re-deployment, participating at all levels to drive the improvements.
• New Product Development process and implementation.
• Development of Asian sourcing/manufacturing that optimizes business results.
• Product and Process Quality improvements.
• Acquisition integration and the realization of expected synergies.

Professional Background

• Consultant with Flow Consulting.
• COO, Universal Trailer Corp. (Haulmark, Featherlite & Exiss/Sooner brands).
• President, DeVilbiss Air Power Co.
• President, Century Mfg. Co.
• VP Manufacturing, Werner Ladder Co.
• VP Operations, Porter-Cable Power Tools.
• Plant Mgr., Black & Decker.

Education and Associations

• BS, Mechanical Engineering, Duke University.
• MBA, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.
• MS, Material Science/Metallurgy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

"In today’s challenging market environment, there must be a heightened sense of urgency by the entire organization to drive both short- and long-term results through the execution of well developed action plans."