Gray Manufacturing Technologies Management Team

Jacob Trahan, General Manager

After beginning his career in technical sales, Jacob started working in manufacturing on a full-time basis in 2015. He joined Gray Manufacturing as general manager in Aug. 2021. Previously, Jacob served as Manufacturing Project Manager at Columbus McKinnon.

Jacob graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette with a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering and a minor in business management. Compass views his constant desire for improvement a vital piece of Gray’s future growth.

Evan Grose, Operations Manager

Evan has worked at Gray Manufacturing for more than five years over two different stints. He returned to the company in 2017 as Manufacturing Engineer and rose to Quality Engineer shortly thereafter. In July 2021, Evan received another promotion to Operations Manager.

He has 18 years of experience working as an engineer designer and CNC programmer. While earning his two-year mechanical engineering degree, Evan graduated first in his class at Catawba County Community College.

Luke Honbarger, Quality Supervisor

Luke started his career as a Lube Technician, then quickly made a career change to pursue manufacturing. After earning an Associates in Automotive Systems Technology, he graduated from UNC at Charlotte with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and minor in Mathematics. During his final year of school, Luke served as an intern at Curtis-Wright Aviation.

Joining Gray in 2021, Luke initially became Quality Engineer before the company officially named him Quality Supervisor in Jan. 2022. During the year prior to working at Gray, he was a vital part of the transition into hand sanitization production at Chematron Speciality Chemicals.

Kyle Sterk, Lead 5-axis Programmer 

Like Evan, Kyle has worked two separate stints at Gray Manufacturing. He was one of the original employees in 2013 and stayed three years before leaving for an opportunity at Stewart-Haas Racing. Coming back to Gray in January 2020, Kyle referred to his return as “a no-brainer” because of the opportunity to work with the company’s new equipment and machinery.

Kyle has more than 15 years of experience in CNC machining. He received a lot of his training from Jerry Soots when both were working for Penske Racing.

Donna Campbell, Office Manager

Also an original Gray Manufacturing employee, Donna has about two and a half decades of accounting experience. She has held her current position at Gray since 2013.

Prior to Gray, Donna worked at a CPA firm in Mooresville, NC for eight years. She received her accounting training from performing personal and corporate tax returns and book keeping.