Leadership

Who We Are

Mission and Purpose

ECS provides an environment for engaged, talented people to thrive & improves the quality, safety, & variety of the world’s food, medicines, & other products. This environment allows our technology experts to provide innovative solutions to help manufacturers deliver great products for better living.
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Randy Otto
CEO
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Kurt Daunhauer
COO
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John Parraga
Batch Process Specialist
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Tim Matheny, P.E.
Chairman of the Board
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Jordan Stoltz
Engineering Director- Automation Ecosystem
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Jeff Harpenau
Engineering Director- Automation Ecosystem
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Ryan Muller
Engineering Director- Automation Ecosystem
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Matt Ryan
Engineering Director- Automation Ecosystem
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Glenn Gill
Engineering Director
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Phillip Michel
Systems Engineer
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Rafael Zapata
Systems Engineer
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Allen Hartley
Systems Engineer
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Jordan Jones
Systems Engineer
Randy Otto

Randy brings to ECS more than 25 years of experience in diverse industries, including glass fibers manufacturing and custom assembly machine manufacturing. Before joining ECS, Randy spent 10 years managing the delivery of assembly equipment for Integrated Systems Manufacturing and process control systems for Premier System Integrators. For most of the last 12 years, he has managed business development and sales for ECS. Randy graduated from Purdue University with a degree in electrical engineering technology. He has an MBA from the University of Southern Indiana.

Kurt Daunhauer

Kurt has more than 27 years of experience integrating process control solutions for a variety of industries. He has managed ECS’ operations since 1995. Before that, he spent nine years delivering material handling solutions for Pentek Corporation and drive and motion systems for Flanders Electric Engineering. Kurt graduated from Purdue University with a degree in electrical engineering technology.

John Parraga

John Parraga is an experienced process, particularly batch process, an engineer with career stops at Sequentia, the firm that gave the world batch management as we know it, and Rockwell Automation. At Rockwell Automation John held several roles. As a Global Process Technical Consultant, John advised many customers and integrators on the best way to control their processes. As the FactoryTalk Batch product manager, John was part of the PlantPAx leadership team. As a salesperson focused on the life science industry, John was able to apply his knowledge in a different but rapidly growing area of process manufacturing. John has participated in a number of organizations over the years. His published paper on recipe-based clean-in-place remains a standard for implementing the best and most efficient clean-in-place control systems.

Tim Matheny, P.E.

Tim has more than 33 years of software engineering and consulting experience. Working for ECS in a variety of roles since 1982, he has served as president for the past 24 years. Tim holds a degree in mechanical engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. He also completed the lay minister certification program at Concordia University Wisconsin. Tim started Engineer Our Future, a collaboration of workforce and economic development entities, high school teachers, business leaders, and college students.

Jordan Stoltz

Jordan graduated from the University of Evansville with a B.S. in Computer Engineering. Jordan began working for ECS as an intern and has been a full-time engineer for ECS since his graduation. Jordan has worked on a wide variety of integration projects for ECS, with a focus on Batch Processing. In addition to base skills in PLC programming and SCADA system design, Jordan also has significant experience working with custom SQL-based material management solutions, MES systems, Rockwell’s FactoryTalk Batch software suite, and ECS’ S88 Builder product. Jordan has been involved in large-scale batch processing projects in many capacities, from the sales/quoting cycle to development, startup, service, and support.

Jeff Harpenau

Jeff has 25+ years of automated manufacturing, and process control experience, in high volume discrete manufacturing, material handling, power plant systems, and food and beverage processes. He started his career at Siemens EC designing and programming high volume automation lines. For the majority of the last 18 years, his experience focused in process control and system integration of material handling and batch processes. Jeff graduated from the University of Southern Indiana with a degree in Electrical Engineering Technology and has since returned to obtain a Master’s in Industrial Manufacturing (MSIM), focusing on lean manufacturing.

Ryan Muller

Ryan graduated from Purdue University with a BS in Computer Integrated Manufacturing Technology in 1998. He has since applied his degree in sales, management, and engineering roles. Starting as an account representative for a prominent automation distributor in Northern Illinois, Ryan became knowledgeable in controls hardware and servo systems. He expanded this knowledge working for Integrated Systems Manufacturing as a Controls Engineer designing and programming custom packaging equipment for companies in the pharmaceutical and automotive industries. Ryan has been with ECS Solutions for 14 years where he has served as a Systems Engineer, Project Manager, Account Manager, and Director of Engineering. During his tenure at ECS, Ryan has been exposed to power generation, metal converting, automotive, food and beverage, and life science industries.

Matt Ryan

 

In the first stage of his career, Matt worked for various companies and industries in Project/Plant engineering roles. Companies such as Michelin Tire, Ashland Petroleum (now Marathon), Brown/Quebecor Printing & TEKNO (Material Handling). For most of the last 18 years, Matt has owned and operated a Systems Integration business in Bowling Green, KY, concentrated on the Food & Beverage & Specialty Chemicals markets. Matt is focused on understanding the client’s needs and collaborating with them to deliver cost-effective Automation systems that solve real problems. Matt has been certified by Rockwell Automation in Factory Talk Historian, Vantage Point, Metrics, and Thin Manager software products. He has also achieved the Certified Solution Architect designation by Stratus Technologies.

Glenn Gill

Glen has extensive experience with the control systems used on automated manufacturing equipment. A combination of seasoned problem-solving skills and leadership experience help Glen bring resolution to the most demanding control system integration challenges.

Areas of expertise include high speed automation, aluminum casting, rolling, and finishing applications, variable speed drives, coordinated drive solutions, industrial control networks, and complex control system hardware design and software development.

Phillip Michel

Phil graduated from Purdue University with a degree in electrical engineering technology and has 28 years of experience in integrated and process automation with Rockwell and Siemens controllers. Before coming to ECS, Phil worked 10 years for a subsidiary of Siemens and then, after starting his own controls company for a few years, came to ECS where he has worked for the past 16 years. Phil is also an expert with Visual Studios and SQL Server and is a co-inventor of ECS’ S88 Builder product which fully implements Rockwell’s Factory Talk Batch’s OPC interface and provides the middleware between batch and the factory I/O.

Rafael Zapata

Rafael has more than 14 years of experience as a lead engineer responsible for interfacing with customers to understand requirements and deliver solutions in the industrial process automation sector, 11 of which have been dedicated to the design and implementation of batch process using the ISA 88 standard. He has experience automatization in processes related to food, beverages, pharmaceuticals, animal nutrition. Rafael worked as a technical leader at Rockwell Automation, where he developed innovative solutions using PlantPAX and developed code generators to reduce implementation times and standardize the solution. Rafael’s deep knowledge includes detailed process knowledge that allows him to optimize customers’ systems, for example, one million dollar savings in Oil & Gas industry by tunning PID Loops properly.

Allen Hartley

Allen obtained a BS ME degree with a minor in mathematics from WKU and has worked as a systems engineer since graduating. He started his career with material handling while working at Fruit of the Loom and recently gained experience with food and beverage and chemical industries while working for an integration company. He is proficient in Rockwell PLC/HMI programming, electrical designs, and is Thin Manager certified. He also has experience configuring and implementing barcode scanners/cameras, motor drives, Historian applications, and servo systems. He regularly deals with customers in a project management capacity.

Jordan Jones

Jordan obtained his BS EE degree from WKU and has worked in the system integrator business for most of his career. He has experience with automotive, food and beverage and chemical industries. He has technical expertise in Rockwell PLC/HMI programming, electrical designs, and robotics. He has handled many other types of applications as well, including, but not limited to, Siemens TIA Portal, Ignition, vision systems, and servo systems. He also handles project management with customers on a regular basis.