Scott Skipton

Scott’s story:  Growing up in Harrison, Ohio, about 25 miles west of Cincinnati, Ohio, Scott graduated from the University of Dayton (UD) in December of 1985 with a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering.    At that time he was part of one of the first classes at UD to participate in a cooperative education program where he had the opportunity to work every other semester during his Junior and Senior year. These co-op semesters were spent at Cincinnati Gas and Electric (now Duke Energy) at their Miami Fort Generating Station in North Bend, Ohio. 

After successfully completing his co-op program and graduating from UD, Scott was offered and accepted a Project Electrical Engineering position with Owens Corning Fiberglas (OCF) located at their manufacturing plant in Newark, Ohio.   Starting in January of 1986 and working for OCF until March of 1990, Scott was fortunate to have experienced people who were willing to mentor him in electrical engineering in a manufacturing environment.   He was able to learn many things from this work experiences that weren’t taught in college.   Things that really helped grow his career like troubleshooting, plc programming, project management and how to work in cross functional team including how to interact with skilled crafts.  

In March of 1990, Scott was recruited by an old colleague to work for a competitor, Knauf Fiber Glass.   He was hired as a Project Electrical Engineer at the Knauf Shelbyville Plant. where he spent the last 32 years, flourishing as an engineer and leader.  

During his career at Knauf, Scott was promoted multiple times, achieving a goal of being a Plant Engineer in charge of maintenance and project engineers. In 1998 he was promoted to Engineering Manager in charge of all Plant Engineers and Maintenance across the nation before being promoted one more time and serving most of his career as Director of Engineering where he was fortunate enough to lead a team that did projects such as major maintenance rebuilds, the addition of production lines in existing facilities, helping lead the design and construction of a new plant in California, a major expansion in the Indiana plant, and was involved in the acquisition and transition of a company into the Knauf family of businesses. 

In the Director of Engineering role, Scott was responsible for the project management of projects up to $242 million dollars of investment.  He learned many things about project and people management in the job but the best lesson he learned was to surround himself with good people and give them the support to motivate them to achieve.  

For many years, Scott’s work required consistent travel, then in 2020, during the pandemic, Knauf, like many others, restricted most travel during the height of COVID. Scott was able to spend time with his wife of 31 years, Melody, three kids, Kristoffer (wife Lyndsey), Chelsey (husband David), & Cassady, and his three grandchildren, Brodyn, Quinnyn, & Kyelyn, and reflect on his satisfying career.  

“During the pandemic, I like many others lost a few good friends and had another close friend get diagnosed with a life changing disease.  It was these events that caused me to decide to retire at the age of 58 after 36 years of working in engineering in insulation manufacturing.”

However, in recent years Scott has seen the difficulty in industry’s ability to hire good technical people that want to work in manufacturing.  He recognizes that it doesn’t make sense for most companies to hire the amount of technical people they need to manage production operations and manage capital investment projects.  Because of this, there is a need to supplement a company’s technical resources with external resources.  Considering those thoughts, Scott decided to start his own business that would enable him to provide these services and create a better work/life balance.