Centro, Inc.

We would like to recognize and thank Jennifer Giddens on her 17th anniversary as a member of the Centro outside sales team. Jennifer joined Centro after earning a Chemical Engineering degree at Louisiana Tech and working in increasingly responsible roles in the process industry. From the moment that she joined Centro Jennifer took complete ownership of her territory and quickly became one of the top salespeople in the company. Through her 17 years she has absorbed a number of product, customer and territory changes, and still succeeded. Her combination of persistence, intelligence and customer focus makes her an outstanding advocate for Centro, her customers and our vendors.

We would like to recognize and also thank Brad Davis for his 25 years with the Centro team. Brad spent 5 years with Centro, and left to join a manufacturing company as a Regional Sales Manager. He returned to Centro after the ownership and leadership change at Centro in December 2001. Initially Brad came back to Centro as the Filtration Division Sales Manager but when a territory position opened up in Middle Tennessee Brad changed into that role and has been highly successful. Over the past 25 years Brad has had to learn a lot of new things about our product lines and our business tools, and through all of this change, he has adapted and succeeded.

Today, December 1st on her birthday, Christy Huffstickler retired today from our Shreveport team. Christy joined Centro in 2006 after we acquired Pelican Industrial Supply. Christy's children and a grandchild joined our Shreveport team to wish her the best in this next step in her life. Christy did a great job and always looked at every challenge as an opportunity.

We regret to announce of the passing of our former employee, Joel Lester. Joel served as the Warehouse Manager at our Memphis office before Jeff Huffman assumed the position. Joel worked for Centro for 28 years. A memorial service will be held on Friday, December 1st at 6pm at Oaklawn Baptist Church, located at 5714 Benjestown Rd, Memphis, TN 38127

Black Friday was a HUGE “savings” day! Thanks to Eric Kirkendall, Jennifer Giddens and Amos Hutchinson for the assist on a holiday. A key customer was on annual maintenance outage, and they were starting up the plant Saturday, during the Thanksgiving holiday. They contacted Jennifer our Account Manager on Friday morning needing a part that they last bought from Centro 5 year ago and without this part they will not be able to control heat and humidity. Jennifer texted Eric Kirkendall, our branch manager in Shreveport, LA and he said the lead time on these were 2-3 weeks so probably out of luck. Jennifer googled the part just to see what it was and discovered that a reseller that supplies refurbished units and they had the product, so Jennifer reached out to Amos Hutchinson, the Centro branch manager in Memphis and leader of Advanced Industry Support, the Centro Value Add team. Amos, who was visiting family in Texas on the holiday, reached out to the reseller and found that they had 2 in Canada. We got lucky since they were in Canada, they were working Friday and were able to ship the part! We started the process with just a written authorization from the customer and somehow got lucky with a part that wasn’t in the US on a US holiday. It would not have happened if Eric and Amos answering text and calls from Jennifer on the holiday. This is what sets Centro apart!

We would like to wish our employees, our vendors and our customers a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. Thank you all for your support and assistance this year.

We would like to recognize and congratulate Marian Feys on her 37 years of combined service. Marian joined Centro 11 years ago as a result of our acquisition of National Instrument Supply which co-founded and ran for 26 years. Marian has been a critical member of our Accounts Receivable team since joining Centro.

The Shreveport branch had our annual Thanksgiving lunch fiesta style! We had a great lunch complete with a taco bar, chicken rotel casserole(by chef Joe), and all the sides and fixings. Darlene made a delicious sopapilla cheesecake that was devoured before I could take a picture. We are very blessed and I am thankful for this wonderful work crew of ours. Now time for a siesta! HA!

We would like to thank and recognize Melissa Robertson on her 13 years on the Centro team. Melissa started out as our lone territory salesperson in Southern Alabama and Southern Mississippi. Over time, we acquired Technical Specialties Company in Spanish Fort AL and established our Mobile Alabama area branch. Melissa was an integral part of the integration of this acquisition into Centro including relocating to a leased facility in Spanish Fort from the Technical Specialties facility. After several years, she supervised the building of a new branch in Theodore AL and the relocation of our branch into it's permanent home. All through this she has maintained a calm, professional focus on our customers, vendors and growing our business.

We are so grateful for the outstanding presentations that were made at Centro College for November. Today we had outstanding discussions with our inside and inside sales teams on a range of automation and instrumentation products. For 20 years, Centro College has been held with the active support of 4 vendors for each monthly meeting. As time has passed, the meeting has moved from an in-person meeting in Memphis followed by an in-person meeting in Little Rock, to a monthly video conference where all of our territory managers and branches participate in product and sales training. Thanks go out to Palmer-Wahl, Kett, Item and Madison Company.

We pleased to announce that Morgan Biehunko has joined Centro as our new Pricing Supervisor. Our pricing model is critical to our success, including sustaining a positive working relationship with our third-party pricing consultant, P2, maintaining vendor price changes, and managing our customer pricing records. Morgan will oversee these and additional critical pricing-related tasks to continue helping position Centro competitively and favorably with our customer base. Additionally, Morgan will collaborate with personnel from all our departments to help ensure the information in Infor is accurate and help make pricing-related decisions that positively impact Centro. Morgan has a solid grasp of marketing principles, business development, distribution management, and analysis and holds two Bachelor of Science (BS) degrees in Marketing from the University of Alabama and Industrial Distribution from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)

We would like to thank Darlene for attending the Yamada school this week in Chicago. We appreciate her both representing Centro with this important vendor and also for growing her knowledge of this important product line. Darlene has always been ready to roll up her sleeves and learn new products and applications ever since she joined our Shreveport branch team.

We would like to recognize and thank all of the veterans who are part of the Centro team. We are honored to have a number of veterans from all branches of the US military on our team. Just as they contributed to the security of our country, they continue to contribute to the success of our company and our customers.

We would like to recognize and thank Jay Wiley on his 7th anniversary at Centro. Jay joined the company shortly after graduating from college and has worked his way from entry level accounting, to leadership of the company as our CFO. In his role a CFO Jay is responsible for all accounting functions including accounts payable, accounts receivable, tax conformance, bank relations, monthly reporting, budgeting and development of the annual sales and income plan for the company.

We would like to welcome Peyton Lindley to the Centro team. She is joining the company as our first ever Purchasing Supervisor. In this role she will report to Shane Maddox, our COO and will be located in our Birmingham office. Peyton together with Shane, our branch managers and division sales managers, will be responsible for identifying best practices that Centro can use to make our purchasing much more proactive and intentional.

In 2003 Centro acquired Green Controls of Jacksonville AR. This was our first acquisition and made it possible for us to grow dramatically in Arkansas and Northern Louisiana. However momentous the addition of Green Controls products were, it was the addition of Keith Barnes to our team that has had the longest and most consistent value. We would like to recognize Keith on his 23 years of combined service to Green Controls and to Centro. Since joining Centro 20 years ago, Keith has done a tremendous job of serving our customers, vendors and fellow employees as we have grown our product offering, services and capabilities.

In 2003 Centro made the first of what would become 14 acquisitions. The acquisition of Green Controls of Jacksonville AR was momentous for Centro. It made it possible for us to grow dramatically in the instrumentation business with the Foxboro product line, and grew our coverage area to include all of Arkansas and Northern Louisiana. However important these accomplishments were, it was the addition of Eric Kirkendall to our team that has had the longest and most consistent value. We would like to recognize Eric on his 29 years of combined service to Green and Centro. Since joining Centro, Eric has been the backbone of two of our branches, Little Rock and El Dorado, and today is the branch manager of the Shreveport LA branch.

We would like to recognize and thank Don Johns on his 9th anniversary as part of the Centro outside sales team. Don has done a great job of absorbing and implementing a lot of the changes that have occurred in his territory and our Mobile branch over the past 9 years. In keeping with the Centro Strategy of serving industrial customers in process industries and discrete manufacturing, Don continues to lead the evolution of his territory from strictly a process industry territory into being a discrete manufacturing industry territory as well.

Over the past 21 years Centro has acquired and integrated 14 companies, and consistently the most valuable thing that is every accomplished is the recruitment of great people who make us a better company. When we acquired Hydragear in Shreveport LA, we added to our plan for building out what eventually became our Automation & Robotics Division. However, more importantly we were able to add Christy Hoffstickler and Tiffany Chaffin to our inside sales/customer service team. Both Christy and Tiffany were the heart and soul of Hydragear. Centro had acquired Pelican Industrial Equipment company in 2006, and when Christy and Tiffany joined our Shreveport team they took our business to another level. Both Tiffany and Christy had 10 years of experience when they joined our team, and we want to congratulate both of them for 21 years of combined service as part of our team.

The Centro team in the Little Rock branch went all out for Halloween again this year. Congrats go out to everyone in the branch

We had a great Halloween cookout at the Memphis branch. As usual AC Carter was our head chef, with lots of help from the other folks in the branch. Brittany Raley did a great job of getting event organized. We have all been looking forward to today for several weeks.

We had a successful video review of our 3rd quarter results and year to date progress on our 2023 goals with our team on October 26. We presented the 90 minute program before lunch for half of our team, Centro hosted a lunch in each of our branches, and we repeated the presentation for the remaining half of the team. Presentations were made by Brandon Scordino, our CIO & VP of Digital, Jay Wiley our CFO, Shane Maddox our COO, Jerry Walling our VP of Sales and Marketing and Mike Gallagher. A big thank you to Brittany Raley our HR Manager and Amos Hutchinson for bringing in lunch from the Memphis Pizza Cafe.

We would like to recognize and thank Joe Tabor on his first anniversary of his second time with Centro. Joe joined Centro as branch manager of the Shreveport branch after we acquired Pelican Industrial in 2006. Joe was also our first pump division sales manager when we acquired BAT Pump and Supply. During this period Joe was managing the branch, driving our compressor repair business, and our pump business. After we bought out Trigon Engineering, the pump division sales manager was moved to Greg James in Memphis, Joe was still branch manager and working hard to make our compressor business viable. Shortly after Centro decided to exit the compressor business, Joe had a chance to partner with a compressor service company and left Centro. Recently we were in need of an outstanding technical applications person to help with both Mixer and Pump sales support and fortunately Joe was ready to return to Centro. We are very blessed to have him back on our team.

When Centro acquired Advanced Industry Support Inc. in June 2018, our goal was to add to the capabilities of our Automation & Robotics division. In July 2023 we completed our relocation of the AIS team and equipment from leased space in Bartlett TN into the Memphis branch. Since that time we have grown the mission of the AIS team to include valve repair, valve actuation, skid assembly, and a number of other MRO focused activities. Here are just a few things that are moving through the newly renovated facility in Memphis.

Centro had our monthly Centro College session yesterday for inside and outside sales. We had excellent training presentations on a variety of products and applications. We would like to thank the presenters from Flowserve Valve, Chief Engineering, Precia Molen North America and Magnattack. The product and applications information that was shared by our vendors, will be used by our team to improve customer operations and improve their manufacturing processes.

Keep your food manufacturing in compliance with Centro's new Bulk Material Solutions. 🤝 JetBlack Safety Personnel blow-off systems from Air Control Industries and Magnattack Globall magnets 🧲 make it easy to ensure food safety. 🥖
Learn more: https://ow.ly/uU6m50PTnGT?

I had a great dinner tonight with our Melissa Robertson and the Mobile Alabama branch team. A couple of people could not join us. Covid and other issues over the past year or two have the gaps between our visits too long.

We would like to recognize and thank Libby Graves on her 26th anniversary with Centro. Libby has held multiple jobs in the company and has been the Supervisor of Accounts Receivable for several years. Libby's role is mission critical to the success of the company. With several million dollars of AR under her supervision, she and her team make sure that Centro has a strong and professional management of cash flow

We would like to recognize Amos Hutchinson on his 4th anniversary with Centro. Amos has traveled a winding road to his role at Centro. After he graduated from Penn State with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, he went to work for Flowserve and was assigned as a salesperson to Memphis TN, to work with Centro. He was green and still learning but quickly Flowserve realized he had additional potential and moved him into a different role up in PA. Over time Amos continued his career development with Flowserve and a number of other companies, and in his last role he was a project manager for a material handling OEM. That's where our paths crossed again in Lexington KY near the Aventics facility when Amos ran into the Centro team. We were working hard to build out our Automation & Robotics division and Amos seemed to have both the Automation market skills and the legacy skills in the process market and now was living in Memphis. So now after 4 years, Amos has gone from industry product specialist for Automation, to General Manager of AIS (our value add operation) to Branch Manager of the Memphis Branch and AIS. It has been great to have a leader join our company who has had such broad and diverse experience.

We are happy to announce that our new eCommerce website that went live Monday. It can be reached by going to our corporate website www.CentroSolves.com and selecting the eCommerce link, or directly by going to www.CentroMROsupply.com.

The site is fully integrated with our ERP system. All of the inventory on the site is the current inventory in our branches, and all of the pricing is synchronized with our pricing in our computer system.

This has been an 18-month project with about $1 million in funding. Today’s launch is not the end, but rather the end of the beginning, we have 750,000 SKUs on the site, and plan to keep expanding that number in the 4th quarter of this year, and in 2024 and 2025.

The best solutions flow through us | Centro Inc. Centro is a regional industrial solutions provider and distributor of flow control, valves, steam, automation, instrumentation, pumps, seals, compressions and process filtration products.

The Centro team really understands the tire business. By partnering with Emerson as well as many of our other vendor/partners we have helped customers to achieve their manufacturing and operational goals. For more information please contact your local Centro territory manager, or one of our 8 branch locations, or email us at [email protected]

Industrial Tire Manufacturing | Tire Manufacturing Equipment | Emerson US Emerson’s industrial tire manufacturing solutions and equipment boost throughput, cut downtime and ensure quality throughout the tire-making process.

We would like to thank Lee Free, our Process Industry Product Specialist for representing Centro at the Thermal Care national sales meeting this week.

We would like to thank the four vendors who presented at the September Centro College training session: Steve Fisher from Dwyer/Omega, Ed Ford from E+E Elektronik, Phil Colin from Flowline, and Joseph T. Schultheis, Jr. of Waltron. Each of the presenters did a great job in their 90 minute product training session. Established in 2002, Centro College is a monthly training program for outside and inside sales personnel.

We would like to recognize and thank Tommy Hatmaker on his 18th anniversary at Centro. Tommy joined Centro as the Division Sales Manager of the Filtration Division. During his 18 year career, Tommy has also lead the Compressed Air Division, along with the Filtration Division. Later the Compressed Air Division became the Automation & Robotics Division. At that time, the Filtration Division became the Filtration & Purification Division. Over the past three years, Tommy, along with Lee Free, have added key bulk solid material handling product lines, and today Tommy is the Division Sales Manager of the Filtration & Process Systems Division. Tommy has consistently lead our field sales team to improve customer operations by applying technical products. From the day he interviewed for the job, Tommy has always focused on matching the customer's application with the best technical product and avoided being trapped into a race to the bottom on price.

We would like to recognize Eric Kirkendall, our Shreveport branch manager. We had a customer contact us at the end of the week last week with an emergency—they had a large project, and they were trying to start up. A mistake in the design work had been made, and the customer had a regulator based on the design mistake that was incorrect. The regulator had not been sold to the customer by Centro, but the customer contacted us to see what we could do. Eric jumped on it to see what would work and what could ship quickly. He caught additional mistakes, and the Centro team reviewed the specifications with the customer so we could size correctly. The right product was specified, order and delivered and the customer sent us an email "Wanted to let you know that your regulator tested perfectly after install, you really bailed us out. We appreciate it. "

Centro has been an award winning Ashcroft Distributor for more than 25 years and has deep experience with partnering with the Ashcroft team to provide customers with critical instrumentation audits. Contact your local Centro territory manager or [email protected] to learn more about Ashcroft products and how Centro and Ashcroft will partner to help you increase reliability and lower costs in your facility.

4 Important Benefits of Critical Application Instrument Audits See what's involved in our CASE audit and list some of its benefits for plant managers who pursue one.

We would like to recognize and thank Bridgett Graves-Wyatt on her 13 year anniversary with Centro. Bridgett joined the company in the Accounts Receivable department, but made up her mind that she wanted to move into inside sales. After a successful period in Accounts Receivable she had the opportunity to join a newly formed team focused on the Centro-online.com eCommerce site. Eventually she moved into the Memphis inside sales/technical support team but remained the go to person for our internet sales. Centro will be going live with a new eCommerce site at the end of September and Bridgett's experience with eCommerce customers and sales will be critical to our efforts to grow our eCommerce business.