Elastec’s Chief Operating Officer, Curt Kessler, is now stepping into the role of the Chief Executive Officer on February 1st, 2024. Current Elastec CEO Mark Hilliard will be a tenured member of the board of directors in 2024. Hilliard has been with Elastec since 2015 taking over the CEO position in 2021.
Curt Kessler’s successful career started in 1997 when he graduated from the University of Evansville, with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with Math Minor and began working as a Manufacturing Engineer for Accuride Corporation. Kessler then began a 23-year long career at Champion Laboratories with the job titles of Process Engineer, Production Superintendent, and Plant Manager. Curt Kessler’s 26 years of experience in engineering, management, design, and manufacturing will certainly propel his success as Chief Executive Officer at Elastec.
Elastec is now owned by the employees under an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). Elastec’s board of directors and shareholders approved the transaction effective for the year ended December 31st, 2023. This plan will support Elastec’s continued growth, flexibility, and sustainability as an independent company and significant contributor to the local economy.
ABOUT ELASTEC
With 75 years of combined manufacturing experience, Elastec (Carmi and Fairfield, Illinois) and its American Marine division (Cocoa, Florida) design, develop and distribute environmental products such as oil spill response equipment, floating containment booms and barriers, and portable incinerators in 155 countries.
Elastec revolutionized oil spill recovery technology with the invention of the drum skimmer in 1990. Since then, the company has developed a broad portfolio of environmental cleanup products: oil skimmers, oil boom, boom reels, Hydro-Fire™ Boom, American Fireboom, BoomVane, work boats, SmartAsh, MediBurn, and Drug Terminator incinerators, turbidity curtains, Brute Boom, and trash/debris devices to keep our world clean.
Elastec’s American Fireboom and Hydro-Fire® Boom systems were used extensively in the Deepwater Horizon incident for the insitu burning (ISB) of oil in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Elastec’s Hydro-Fire® Boom holds the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title for the “Longest Continuous Burn of Oil Spilled at Sea” for its performance during the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Elastec’s American Marine division in Florida has been manufacturing floating booms, barriers, baffles and turbidity curtains since 1967 to protect sensitive marine habitats from silt and sediment pollution as well as to control floating trash, debris and invasive aquatic weeds in our waterways, rivers and oceans.
