Crane Co., announced the appointment of Max H. Mitchell as executive vice president and chief operating officer and Kris Salovaara as vice president, business development.
Mitchell, 47, has served as president of the fluid handling group, which represents 46 percent of Crane's sales, since April, 2005. Mitchell has driven significant overall improvement in business performance in the fluid handling division during this time by reorganizing around end markets and driving improvement in sales force execution, new product development, lean manufacturing, and supply chain optimization.
Prior to joining Crane, Mitchell had extensive operations and management experience in leadership roles at Pentair Inc., Danaher Corporation and Ford Motor Co.
Eric Fast, president and chief executive officer said in a prepared statement, "I am extremely pleased to have Max Mitchell in this role and am confident he will be a key business partner in driving continued profitable growth."
Mitchell received his bachelor's degree in liberal arts from Tulane University and an MBA in Finance at the University of Pittsburgh, Katz Graduate School of Business.
Salovaara will be responsible for management of the overall mergers and acquisitions process including identification, evaluation, analysis, negotiation, due diligence and company integration activities.
Salovaara has 25 years of experience in banking and business development. Most recently he was a managing director at FBR Capital Markets & Co. and was responsible for originating and executing a full array of investment banking services across
a wide range of business segments including industrial, educational services, media, transportation, financial services and real estate.
His previous investment banking experience included senior leadership roles at Goldman, Sachs & Co. as vice president, corporate finance and vice president, transportation group; Bear, Stearns & Co. as managing director for the Media Banking Group and the Telecom Banking Group; Helander Partners LLC and Watch Hill Partners LLC.
Salovaara received a master of business administration degree from the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia and a bachelor of arts in political science from Duke University.
