I am Greg Smith, and I am pleased to announce my appointment as President of FREUND-VECTOR CORPORATION (“FV”).
Since 1997, when FV formed a partnership with FREUND CORPORATION, FV has been providing cutting-edge value to markets around the world, including the United States, where FV’s research and manufacturing are based, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, in line with the FREUND Group’s management vision of “Contributing to better medical care and health for people worldwide.” I would like to share some information about myself, Greg Smith, and FV as part of my inaugural address.
My Career
I graduated from Iowa State University in December 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. I was recruited by Vector Corporation (the predecessor of Freund-Vector) in 1992 and was hired as a Controls Engineer. In 1994, I was promoted to Controls Team Leader and my team released the first PC based, validated control system in the company’s history. In 1996, I was promoted to VP Engineering and served under Vector’s founder Jerry Zahradnik through 2003. In 2004, after Jerry’s retirement, I served as the Vice President Sales and Engineering through 2012. During this period of time, Freund-Vector doubled our revenue and achieved record profitability. Moreover, my teams redesigned every model in Freund-Vector’s product offering, ensuring our products achieved a more competitive, global standard. In 2013, my responsibilities were re-focused primarily in the sales and business development areas. Over that time, my team introduced a novel spray drying product line geared primarily for the development of pharmaceutical and related industries. In 2019, I assumed the responsibility for the process laboratories where our marketing and laboratory teams created significant online and video content that greatly improved Freund-Vector’s image as a global leader in processing technologies for the pharmaceutical and nutritional industries.
FREUND-VECTOR’s Uniqueness
As an American manufacturer, there are two critical areas where Freund-Vector has found success, and will continue to find success: Customization of Design and Superior Service. As our customers continue to expand their facilities, research new products, and release more medicines – they require equipment vendors that can adapt to their facilities, manufacturing philosophies and comply with their unique validation requirements. Throughout my career, I have always been able to demonstrate that if Freund-Vector can solve our customer’s problems better than our competition, the value of our products are justified to our end customers. Our customers operate within a dynamic global network and Freund-Vector’s ability to adapt and respond to that global dynamism has been and will continue to be very critical part of our success.
Offering superior service and support has always been a competitive advantage for Freund-Vector. Many times, service and support are often defined as the startup and installation of the equipment. And indeed, Freund-Vector can install and validate processing equipment faster than any other equipment supplier. Our ability to perform a full FAT – with full processing demonstration – is unique to the industry and is one of many ways Freund-Vector can effectively validate our systems within a 2-3 week period of time. But superior global service goes much further than the initial installation and validation of equipment. Freund-Vector offers effective training programs that provides unique one-on-one training opportunities for customers. These opportunities come in many forms, including in person seminars, online webinars, and personalized “webonstrations” where we will explore, in depth, the processing capabilities of a single processing method.
Our ability to service and retrofit aging equipment is unmatched in the industry. And, of course, our ability to supply the spare components that keep our systems operational serve an incredibly important aspect of Freund-Vector’s Full Circle Service methodology.
My Goal
I am confident Freund-Vector can offer valuable solutions to our customer’s problems, I am confident the equipment we manufacture is second to none in the industry, and I am absolutely convinced Freund-Vector’s collective service mentality will produce win-win, long term relationships with our clients that will drive Freund Group’s profitability for many years to come. My goal is to make Freund-Vector Corporation the crown jewel of the Freund Group portfolio. My passion for the mission of the Freund Group is unmatched and my dedication to Freund-Vector’s success is absolute.
Greg Smith, President, Freund-Vector Corporation