Alan Silva Joins Compass Precision Operating Company
CHARLOTTE, NC – November 19, 2024 – Dustin Jones hasn’t even been in his position as Vice President & General Manager of Quality Products & Machine for three months. But his presence is already paying significant dividends.
First, Dustin positively impacted the Compass Precision operating companies’ current employees. Now, he’s helping bring in new talent.
Quality Products has officially hired Alan Silva as the company’s new Engineering Manager. Alan previously worked with Dustin at two other companies over the past few years.
Alan’s previous relationship with Dustin significantly influenced him wanting to join Quality Products.
“He’s always been someone who helps you grow as much as you are willing to allow him to,” said Alan. “As long as you are willing to take on more, he will keep giving you more. That’s something that I’ve found to be great for my career.
“It drew me to follow him even to Quality Products.”
Alan previously worked about two and a half years at Wakefield Thermal and then one year at C/A Design. During that roughly three and a half year period, Alan worked with Dustin on a day-to-day basis for all but about six months.
When Alan left Wakefield Thermal, he held the same position he now has at Quality. At C/A Design, he served as Project Manager.
Alan first heard about Quality Products when Dustin called him to ask if he was interested in a tour of the shop. That relationship got Alan in the door. Then, Quality’s capabilities sold him on the opportunity.
“The main thing that jumped out at me is the unique ability that Quality Products has to metal form, mill, bend,” said Alan. “It’s not typical that you have one company that does it all. It seems like great potential that you have as a manufacturer to own all that in house. Control all those aspects.”
Dustin identified Alan as a perfect fit for Quality Products because of his experience bringing in new capabilities to support new business growth and his experience implementing automation centered business units. On the tour, Dustin also pointed to the operating company’s need for a greater emphasis on engineering functions as an area where Alan could significantly help.
“That seemed like a great opportunity for me to bring that on board, especially with all the moving pieces that are in a facility with all of those capabilities, to help tie all of those together,” added Alan.
Alan officially started at Quality on Nov. 4. He said his new co-workers have “been really receptive to the idea of changing” and to be “more engineering led” in his first two weeks.
“It seems everyone is excited to have me hit the ground running and have me make an impact,” said Alan.
While Alan has always worked in manufacturing, he admitted that fabrication will be a new challenge for him. But he said he sees it as a terrific opportunity.
In his first six months, Alan will aim to have “engineering branch out into more processes” at Quality. He said it’s also a goal for the company to “hammer down process improvements,” “streamline information” and provide “technical support across the facility” to make everything repeatable.
Eventually, that could give Quality a greater chance to land first-time customers that may have unique requirements that are new to the operating unit.
Alan graduated from NC State with a technical engineering degree. He determined that was the right career path for himself about halfway through high school.
He decided to go into the manufacturing field after completing a senior project at NC State.
Compass Precision was founded in 2019 based upon the simultaneous purchase of three precision CNC machining companies in North Carolina – Advanced Machining & Tooling (Salisbury, NC); Quality Products & Machine (Charlotte, NC); and Tri-Tec Industries (Charlotte, NC). Compass added Gray Manufacturing Technologies (Denver, NC) to the fold in August 2020, then acquired Douglas Machining Services (Winona, MN) in March 2021.
Since then, Compass has purchased R&D Machine (Oldsmar, FL) in April 2022; Strom Manufacturing (North Plains, OR) in July 2022; and Bergeron Machine (Westford, MA) in April 2023, bringing its number of operating companies to eight.
For more information about Quality Products & Machine and Compass Precision, please contact Gary Holcomb, Compass CEO at [email protected].