New hires and promotions in the plumbing and heating manufacturer and distributor industry.

  • Grundfos Pumps Corp. named Dennis Wierzbicki as president and general manager of Grundfos U.S. Previously, he served in several senior positions with WICOR/Pentair Industries and as vice president of worldwide sales for DeZURIK, a unit of SPX.  He also had manager positions with Goulds Pumps Inc., and The Blackfox Group.
    The company also named Kirk Vigil as wholesale business development manager for its largest division, domestic building services. Previously, Vigil served for seven years as regional sales manager, then as director of sales-west for Uponor. Prior to joining Uponor, Vigil was branch manager of Dahl, a division of Hajoca.
    Finally, Jes Munk Hansen was named north american regional managing director. Hansen joined Grundfos as a group business manager and in 2002 became senior vice president the Dosing Business Unit.


  • Solco Plumbing Supply (Brooklyn, N.Y.) promoted David Weiner as president. Weiner first started his career at Solco in 1989 as its first management trainee. He has at various times held almost every position at Solco including shipping, receiving, warehouseman, counter salesperson, purchasing and trucking. He quickly advanced from there through senior level positions: from purchasing manager in 1994, to director of operations in 2001 to vice president of operations in 2005.


  • Julien recently promoted Lloyd Leblanc to vice president of sales, marketing and business development for Julien corporate. With Leblanc’s promotion comes a strategic restructuring of the company, in which the home refinements division will be comprised of Julien-branded products and their OEM arm.


  • Basco hired Cindy Goodwin as its vice president of sales for wholesale plumbing.  Goodwin will be responsible for overseeing all sales and marketing functions for the wholesale plumbing channel. Prior to joining Basco, Goodwin worked with Alsons Corp. in varying roles of increased responsibility, most recently as national sales manager.


  • A. O. Smith Water Products Co. appointed David R. Warren as vice president-international and a member of the company’s leadership team. Warren has been managing director-international since May 2007, responsible for all international sales outside North America and China, an assignment he held in addition to his role as managing director of the company’s Veldhoven operation.
    The company also appointed Ton van der Hamsvoort as general manager of its Veldhoven, the Netherlands, operation. Van der Hamsvoort joined A. O. Smith’s Veldhoven operation in 1993 as a project engineer and was promoted to production and engineering manager. Since April 2006, he has held the position of general sales and marketing manager responsible for water heater sales in Europe.  
    David Hammond was named the general manager of the company’s Canadian water heater operations, headquartered in Fergus, Ontario. Hammond was director of marketing and new product technology for A. O. Smith’s Canadian water heater operations prior to his new assignment.  Previously, he was GSW Water Heaters’ director of new product sales.


  • Rheem Manufacturing Co. named Sam Heath as water heating parts product manager and Jeremy Laymon as the new HVAC Southwest district parts manager. Heath brings more than 13 years of marketing management experience, primarily in the areas of product management, product development and market research in nationally branded consumer product and industrial applications. In addition, he holds two patents and is a Six Sigma Green Belt. Laymon previously served as national sales manager for Lumalier.


  • Jacuzzi Brands Corp. named Dawn Wells as manager for marketing communications and strategy. Most recently, Wells led domestic marketing strategy at the Disneyland Resort. She has held marketing positions at leading packaged goods companies including Slimfast, ConAgra Foods and Nestle Foods; and in the travel sector for Royal Caribbean International. She began her career as a business planning analyst for Ricoh and Canon Business Machines.