While Kurt officially joined the Wood Stone team on April Fools Day in 1996, he first became involved with Wood Stone in 1992 when he called on one of the founders, Harry Hegarty’s incinerator building business. “I was selling high temperature ceramics to Harry for his incinerators, and one day I came into his shop and saw something that I didn’t recognize – it turned out to be one of Wood Stone’s early ovens. It is hard to believe, but that was over 5,000 ovens ago!”

Before Wood Stone, Kurt had worked in a variety of small and large corporations. He has traveled the world (literally) visiting manufacturing operations where he designed, sold, and installed high temperature ceramic materials and systems for heavy industry. Over those years, he was responsible for various sales, product development, customer service and marketing efforts. In addition, he has extensive field sales experience, which is how he first met Wood Stone.

Kurt graduated with a BS in Ceramic Engineering (material science) from the University of Illinois that included ceramics, metallurgy and polymer science. He also has a strong background in photography and design that he acquired by working in photography studios and eventually his own business that specialized in commercial and fashion photography.

“Beside mowing lawns and shoveling snow, my first paying job was in the foodservice industry washing dishes after weddings at church when I was about 12. Wood Stone is a wonderful place to work and I love the food that these ovens produce, but I have to admit that I miss all the free wedding cake.”

Along with his contributions to the sales team, Kurt also organizes over twenty events such as tradeshows a year, and works extensively with key customer accounts and with the dealer, consultant, and representative community.

“What I enjoy the most about being at Wood Stone is the passion that people here have for what they do, how they do it, and for life in general. If you have to work, what could be better than doing something you love with people you like? That is Wood Stone for me.”