Ritchie Hires Director of Operations
BLOOMINGTON, MN (May 29, 2018) – Ritchie Engineering Company, Inc., the leader in service tools for HVAC&R professionals and manufacturer of YELLOW JACKET® products, announces today the hiring of Chris Klope as director of operations. He assumed his new role on May 8th.
In his new role, Mr. Klope will be responsible for overseeing the daily fulfillment and distribution operations across the company’s two Bloomington, MN manufacturing facilities. “Chris comes to us with a broad history of impactful leadership performance in the manufacturing industry, with strong skills in operations, sales, marketing, distribution, product development and ERP/MRP systems,” said Tom Ritchie, President. “We welcome him to our organization and as a member of our leadership team and look forward to working with him as we continue to grow and develop our order fulfillment and distribution operations.”
Mr. Klope brings to the organization more than 20 years of executive manufacturing operations experience, including leadership roles at successful manufacturing and industrial distribution companies. In all positions, he was a driving force behind countless highly successful change and improvement initiatives that delivered exceptional results while strengthening revenue, profit and market leadership. Chris earned an MBA from Washington University’s Olin Business School.
“I believe that an organization’s people are its greatest asset,” said Klope. “I am excited to instill a corporate culture that empowers staff to reach their highest potential through collaboration, integrity, engagement, performance metrics and accountability.”
About YELLOW JACKET
The YELLOW JACKET brand name is synonymous with the highest quality and most complete line of HVAC/R tools in the industry. The brand’s roots go back to 1946 when Ritchie Engineering Company, Inc., a manufacturers’ representative organization, became a hose manufacturer. With an emphasis on quality and service, Ritchie Engineering, based in Bloomington, Minn., trademarked the hose as the YELLOW JACKET® Charging Hose in 1950. Since then, the company has been engineering, manufacturing, and continuously improving the YELLOW JACKET hose while adding new products to its portfolio. Today, YELLOW JACKET products are sold worldwide through a network of authorized HVAC&R and automotive wholesalers. For more information, please call (952) 943-1333 or visit our Web site at www.yellowjacket.com.