An Experienced Team
Paragon Airheater Technologies is led by an experienced team of
managers, with diverse skills and experience. Please click on a
name to learn more.
Board of Directors
Chris Turner, Chairman of the Board
Wayne Allen
Bob Yari
William C. O'Connor
Executives
John Busic, Chief Executive Officer
Cannon Pearson, Chief Operating Officer
Ronald Trepp , Chief Financial Officer
Brain D. Robertson, Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Jaime P. Reed, Executive Director - Manufacturing
Jack Freidberg, Product Innovation
John Guffre P.E., Research Scientist
Richard Wolff, Regional Sales Manager - Central
John Albritton, Regional Sales Manager - West
Jaye Locke, Regional Sales Manager
Frank Klisura, Tech Services Manager
Stephan Hasting, Technical Specialist
Gary C. Goetschius, Technical Service Manager
Chris Turner
Chairman of the Board
Mr. Turner has over 25 years of business and finance experience. Mr. Turner successfully built Vision Solutions, Inc. a Southern California software firm from the ground up, turning it into a 60 million dollar company with over 160 employees and offices throughout the US and abroad. Through Mr. Turner’s vision and leadership a small startup company became a global success story. In March of 2000 Mr. Turner negotiated the sale of Vision to Idion Technology Holdings, a South African company. After the sale of the firm, Mr. Turner began real estate investing and eventually formed Centric Group. Mr. Turner’s is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Centric Group, a commercial real estate development firm located in Orange County, California.
Mr. Turner is a Board member of SouthHills Community Church where he has been a board member for the past six years. He also serves on the Presidents Advisory Board for Concordia University-Irvine, California. The Presidents Advisory Board main focus surrounds the expansion, strategic direction and finance of the University.
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Wayne Allen
Board of Directors
Wayne Allen is a Shareholder at Buchalter Nemer, one of the largest law firms on the West Coast. He specializes in corporations and partnership law, corporate transactions, and estate and tax planning.
Mr. Allen has substantial experience advising clients on selecting, forming, operating, managing and dissolving corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies. He represents a wide range of clients from diverse industries. He drafts and negotiates entity acquisition, mergers, buy-sell agreements, employment agreements, non-compete agreements, management and consulting agreements, and various related agreements.
He also specializes in estate planning and wealth preservation, including tax planning, charitable giving, trust administration. Mr. Allen advises on a variety of personal objective planning including ESOP transactions and other succession concepts.
Mr. Allen earned his J.D. at Baylor Law School and his LLM in Taxation at the University of San Diego Law School in 1988. He earned his undergraduate degree in finance and economics at Baylor University. Mr. Allen holds a California Real Estate Broker’s license.
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Bob Yari
Board of Directors
Bob Yari began his career in Hollywood after receiving a degree in Motion Picture Cinematography. After working for several years as a Producer and Director, Bob concentrated his efforts in the real estate industry. His ventures have included syndication, construction, and re-development of office towers, malls and residential complexes. Bob also is an owner and board member of the Mexmil Companies, an aerospace manufacturing group with over 1,000 employees worldwide. Over the past five years, Bob has re-entered the film industry with the creation of the Yari Film Group which has produced over 35 features and is a theatrical distributor in the US. Yari Film Group is one of Hollywood’s fastest growing independent studios with an annual production and release budget of over $300 million and a yearly slate of 10-15 films per year.
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William C. O'Connor
Board of Directors
Bill graduated from the University of Southern California's Personal Financial Planning Program, earning his designation as Certified Financial Planner. He furthered his studies to earn the prestigious designations of Enrolled Agent (admitted by the Department of the Treasury to represent clients before the Internal Revenue Service) and an Accredited Tax Advisor.
In 1979, he was instrumental in assisting major banks establish personal financial planning centers throughout California. Bill founded Applied Financial Planning, Inc. in 1986, and is President of the corporation.
Bill is a past member of the adjunct faculty of California Lutheran University and The University of California at Irvine. He has also taught investment planning and tax management as an adjunct faculty member for the National Endowment for Financial Education's College for Financial Planning in Denver, Colorado and the University of Phoenix in Orange County. Bill has written several workbooks, which have been used, on a national basis as training materials for the Certified Financial Planner program. His workbooks, CFP- Investment and CFP- Taxation have been used on a national basis. He has been a contributing author to the business magazine, Main Street.
Bill has been a member of the Orange County chapter of the Financial Planning Association having served on the association's educational committee, responsible for providing continuing education for financial planners. He is licensed through the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards and Practices and is listed as a registered practitioner with the Institute of Certified Financial Planners. Bill is also a member of the National and California Association for Enrolled Agents.
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John Busic
Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Busic brings to Paragon Airheater Technologies a winning service-oriented philosophy learned during eleven years as a police officer, and four years as president of a home improvement company. One of the youngest recruits for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and a top graduate from the academy, Mr. Busic was a highly decorated officer with commendations when he chose to voluntarily leave the department to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams. He acquired a home improvement company in 2001 and grew it over 1100%-a 240% per year average-to achieve a dominant position in the industry. His disciplined, hands-on approach to business management is built around understanding customer needs, and marshaling company resources to serve those needs.
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Cannon Pearson, Esq.
Chief Operating Officer
Prior to joining Paragon Airheater Technologies, Mr. Pearson practiced law for six years with Callahan, McCune & Willis, P.C., one of the largest law firms in Orange County, California. There he specialized in Business Formation, Business Litigation, Intellectual Property and Insurance Defense. Born and raised in Oklahoma, Mr. Pearson attended University of Oklahoma and earned his B.S. and J.D. while serving eight years as a United States Marine. Additionally, he worked with his father to expand Guthrie Corporation into an international company.
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Ronald Trepp
Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Trepp has over 35 years of experience as a CFO and COO in both public and private companies. His experiences include working with companies in the manufacturing, transportation, and electronic/computer industries. Over the last several years, Mr. Trepp has been directly involved in taking a company public (Simulation Sciences), positioning and selling a company (Cimco, Inc.) and growing and harvesting shareholders value (Vision Solutions).
Prior to the start of his career Mr. Trepp graduated from UCLA with an Undergraduate Degree (BS) in Finance and then continued school at UCLA with an MBA degree from the Anderson School.
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Brian D Robertson
Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Mr. Robertson is a distinguished leader with over 25 years of management experience in U.S. and international market serving the petrochemical, power, cement and mining industries. He is a recognized innovator possessing strategic and tactical planning skills with a proven track record.
Mr. Robertson’s success at Western Refractory Construction, Nalco Chemical Company, Nalco/Exxon, and NL Industries has earned him numerous recognition awards for his sales and leadership skills. He brings with him tremendous relationships in the industrial and power industry having success in the oilfield business, building and industry leader in the heavy oil and upgrader business and using his innovative approach in the refining industry. Having retired from Nalco after 20 years he continued his successful track record in the construction business before coming to Paragon Airheater Technologies. Mr. Robertson is a certified instructor with Wilson Learning in Counselor Sales, Versatile Sales, utilizing Target Account Selling and Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly successful People” to train his teams and motivate their performance. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from Colorado State University and continued his training with numerous financial, marketing and sales training classes and courses over his career.
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Jaime P. Reed
Executive Director – Manufacturing
Mr. Reed has over 35 years of experience manufacturing and engineering replacement parts for air preheaters. Mr. Reed’s experience includes the design of production lines for the manufacturing of baskets and other ancillary replacement parts for the air preheater. He is fluent in both English and Spanish. As Executive Director - Manufacturing he will have responsibility for all basket manufacturing aspects as well as quality assurance and engineering. Mr. Reed was instrumental in the ISO 9001 certification of the plant.
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Jack Freidberg
Product Innovation
As company founder and product innovator, Mr. Freidberg combines
his ingenuity with a wealth of industry experience to help us create
truly revolutionary components. The innovator of the high-performance
DuraMax® seals, the DuraGuard™ hopper level detector,
and many other products, his ideas help our customers achieve unprecedented
levels of performance and efficiency—and keep our company
growing. Prior to forming Power Replacements Incorporated (now Paragon Airheater Technologies), Mr. Freidberg worked for a variety of companies serving the power generation industries, including San Diego Gas & Electric, Helmick and Combustion Engineering. He started in
the power generation components business by working at his father’s
company, the original Power Replacements Inc. There, he worked up
from the shop floor, to foreman, sales and service, until the company
was sold to Combustion Engineering in the late 1970’s.
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John Guffre P.E.
Cheif Research Scientist
Mr. Guffre has over 30 years experience in the power generation field with an emphasis on improving power plant efficiency, and the design and operation of pollution control equipment in power plants. His experience includes hands on operation, maintenance, and management of large coal fired power plants. Mr. Guffre has also ran several companies that have manufactured custom engineered products for the power industry, including Wahlco Power Products, a leading manufacturer of air heater baskets, seals, and replacement parts, and Bachmann Industries, the premier manufacturer of flow control equipment for power plants. He also was the Director of Power Plant efficiency for Control Components, Inc. This extensive knowledge of heat rate improvement calculation has allowed John to provided instrumental testing and validation of Paragon patented product line. Mr. Guffre’s work and studies have been published in multiple industry related magazines and trade journals, such as, but not limited to Power and Power Engineering. He has been instrumental in the design and testing of Paragon’s DuraShield ABS line of coating.
Mr. Guffre graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in Mechanical and Aerospace engineering has also received specialized post graduate education at - Harvard Law School, University of Chicago, and University of Michigan. Mr. Guffre is a licensed professional engineer who oversees all new product research and development in the position of Chief Research Scientist at Paragon Airheater Technologies.
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Richard Wolff
Regional Sales Manager - Central
Prior to joining Paragon, Mr. Wolff managed Jefferson Smurfit Corporation
in Corona, CA for ten years. Smurfit is the largest paper company
in the United States and abroad. Prior to that, Mr. Wolff managed
two California plants for Matthews International Corporation for
ten years. Matthew’s has been in business for over 150 years
(General Manager of Sales and Operations).
Born in New Jersey and raised in California, Mr. Wolff earned a
business management degree from Riverside City College, joined the
United States Marine Corps and served nine years.
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John Albritton
Regional Sales Manager - West
Mr. Albritton brings to Paragon Airheater Technologies an accomplished sales career of over 20 years in the computer industry. He started his career working at NCR selling into the Banking, Savings and Loan Industry. Mr. Albritton then left to cover several IBM Territories in the manufacturing and distribution industries as an agent for Premier IBM Business Partners. Later, he joined a computer software manufacturer, Vision Solutions. While working at Vision Solutions, Mr. Albritton was a Regional Manager and one of the firm’s top sales people helping make the company a leader in the industry. While at Vision Mr. Albritton was instrumental in helping grow the company’s revenue sevenfold in five and a half years. As a direct result of this revenue growth, the owners of the company were successfully able to sell the firm for a multi-million dollar transaction. Born in Oklahoma on an Air Force Base, Mr. Albritton has grown-up and worked across the United States. He earned a B.B.A from Texas Christian University and an M.B.A. from Baylor University.
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Jaye Locke
Regional Sales Manager
Jaye Locke recently joined Paragon Airheater Technologies as regional sales manager for the southeast. Previously, he worked with Energy & Environmental Technologies, Inc. (EET) conducting outside sales efforts in Florida and managing business development. EET represents 16 global companies, including Paragon, who manufacture technologically-advanced equipment specializing in power generation, industrial application and pollution control. As a part of this sales force, Jaye successfully grew the annual sales for EET in the state of Florida from $200,000 to over $5 million in less than four years. Jaye has a degree in business management from Valdosta State University and is currently pursuing a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from Georgia Tech in global business. He resides in Atlanta, Georgia with wife Sarah and daughter Caroline.
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Frank Klisura
Technical Services Manager
Mr. Klisura has over fifteen years experience in the field of industrial
manufacturing, including ten years in charge of research and development
for industrial processes at his family-owned machine and engineering
facility. There, he developed a roll manufacturing process for production
of plate glass that improved the overall quality of the finished
product. Prior to joining Paragon, Mr. Klisura spent five years
with Kroger Manufacturing, where he was recognized as a leader in
the field of industrial engineering.
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Stephan Hasting
Technical Specialist
Mr. Hasting has over 15 year of engineering and manufacturing experience. As a Chief Engineer at Kroger, he was responsible for supervising and coordinating engineering department activities, including planned maintenance, capital upgrades and regulatory compliance. Mr. Hastings is a member of Paragon’s research and development team where he uses his expertise in the design & fabrication and programming of protocol lifecycle testing equipment. Mr. Hasting serves as Technical Specialist for Paragon, involved in the installation, modification and repairs to air preheaters.
Mr. Hastings attended the University of Pittsburg were he studied Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. He served in the US Navy for 6 years, where he was involved in US Navy leadership, Management, Education and Training (LMET). He has also completed Total Quality management (TQM) courses and is a qualified Hazmat/Ammonia Release Incident Commander.
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Gary C. Goetschius
Technical Service Manager
Mr. Goetschius has 35 plus years of experience working on air preheaters; employed at ALSTOM, Air Preheater Company for 29 of those years. Gary has hands on experience in many different areas of the air preheater, from Special Projects Engineer, to Manager of Ljunstrom Design, and later to Mechanical Design and Manager of Field Engineering. – Heat Recovery Services. With his in-depth knowledge on design and field modifications and upgrades, Gary brings highly valued added service and consulting to Paragon.
Mr. Goetschius has written and presented multiple papers at the Ljungstrom International Technical Conferences and currently teaches Paragon’s Technical Training Seminars. He has been awarded four U.S. Patents, and had been a member of the ASME since 1974. Gary graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a Degree in Engineering Technology and has continued his education in business and engineering at Alfred University, St Bonaventure, and University of Buffalo.
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