A. O. Smith — a Milwaukee-based manufacturer of residential and commercial water heaters, boilers and water treatment products — announced the beginning of its plans for integrating their most recent acquisition into its North American Water Treatment (NAWT) division.
NAWT includes A. O. Smith branded water filtration and softening products, Aquasana based in Austin, Texas, Hague Quality Water based in Columbus, Ohio, and Water-Right based in Appleton, Wisconsin and acquired by A. O. Smith in April of 2019.
Sam Karge, a senior vice president at A. O. Smith and president of NAWT, outlined his excitement for the collaboration within the division.
“These are truly bright, new ideas that have come out of our discussions as a team,” he said. “Every company that has been brought together to form NAWT has a reputation for innovation and combining our teams is just one more innovative way that we can better serve our customers.”
Luke Java, the director of sales & marketing for Water-Right, will assume the role of managing the Hague Quality Water regional sales personnel in addition to the Water-Right regional sales personnel. This move will create a central point of leadership for both sales and marketing teams, allowing better allocation of resources and providing even stronger customer support coverage.
The former sales manager for Hague, Jared Camacho, will be shifting his efforts to become the national manager of water softener retail sales accounts, reporting to the vice president of sales and general manager of indirect sales for A. O. Smith. This role will manage and further expand the retail market channel in North America.
Erik Koglin, formally the field manager of the Clear Choice Water Group at Water-Right, will now assist in managing the dealer networks for both Water-Right and Hague as a national channel manager. As the NAWT members begin to become more integrated, the role of the national channel manager will become important in facilitating coordination among the variety of branded dealerships within specific regions across the country. All of the dealer’s independently owned businesses dedicated to these branded networks will continue to operate as usual.
Kevin Osborn, the northeast regional sales manager for Water-Right, will be taking on the role of account manager for Hague dealers in the New England territory. This will fill a formerly vacant role in the area while working to facilitate efforts between Water-Right and Hague dealers in that area.
