New York-based manufacturing conglomerate Dover Corp. has moved the headquarters of its electronics unit from upstate New York to Tustin with the promotion of a rising star with local roots.
David R. Van Loan recently was named chief executive of Dover Technologies International Inc., which has a circuit board plant in Pomona. He replaced John Pomeroy, who retired from the Dover unit last month.
With Van Loan’s promotion came a move of the divisional headquarters from Binghamton, N.Y.
“The reason we moved here is because I live here,” said Van Loan, an Anaheim Hills resident. “I was raised in Huntington Beach. It would have been hard to leave.”
Dover Technologies counts yearly sales of $1.5 billion.
Van Loan served as president of Dover Technologies since July. He joined a decade ago when Dover bought his Pomona company, Everett Charles Technologies.
Dover makes everything from garbage trucks to refrigeration equipment and has yearly sales of $6 billion.
Van Loan said he wasn’t interested in moving to the blue-collar town of Binghamton. Being based in upstate New York makes travel challenging for customers and executives, he said.
“Binghamton is not easy to get in and out. It’s more convenient here,” he said.
In late December, Dover Technologies quietly opened a small office along East 17th Street in Tustin near the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway. The office is home to Van Loan and Peter Marshall, Dover Technologies’ chief financial officer.
Van Loan earned his marks at Everett Charles Technologies. When Van Loan started at the electronics maker in 1981, Everett Charles had 40 workers. Today, the business generates yearly sales in the mid-$300 million range and employs more than 1,500 people, he said.
Van Loan led a buyout of Everett Charles three years after he got there. After selling the business to Dover in 1996, he stayed on and did about 10 acquisitions.
Dover Technologies joins several other circuit board companies here. They include Anaheim’s DDi Corp. and Multi-Fineline Electronix Inc. and Santa Ana’s TTM Technologies Inc.
Parent company Dover employs a few hundred workers in Orange County at several operating units, including DEK International, a chip packaging business, and OK International, a supplier for print circuit board assembly.
Dover Technologies had been in Binghamton since its formation in 1984. The company traces its roots back several decades in the region via a collection of businesses assembled by Dover through acquisitions.
The move to Tustin is part of new Dover Chief Executive Ron Hoffman’s plan to have the best executives within his ranks, said Alexander Blanton, an analyst with Ingalls & Snyder LLC.
Hoffman is the fifth boss in Dover’s half-century history. In the past, the company pursued smaller acquisitions of less than $100 million apiece. It also had a reputation of leaving management alone after a buyout, making sellers sometimes accept less in exchange for retaining autonomy.
This culture led to a spirit of entrepreneurialism, Van Loan said.
These days, Dover is pursuing larger acquisitions.
“We need to have a larger appetite,” Hoffman told analysts at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. investment banking conference in New York last fall.
In the first nine months of last year, Dover made $1.1 billion in acquisitions, Hoffman said.
“One of his key goals is to improve the performance of the overall company,” said Robert E. Toomey, analyst with E.K. Riley Advisors. “They’ve sold a number of the lower margin companies and acquired other companies with higher margins.”
Van Loan said he expects to keep working on acquisitions for Dover.
“God bless him to expect a lot,” Van Loan said of Hoffman. “My job is to help deliver that.”
