Gene Wright, who has 22 years of experience in manufacturing, has been named vice president of manufacturing at the Salisbury and Oregon locations of Imperial Brown, Inc., according to an announcement by Justin Sandall, president of Imperial Brown.

Imperial Brown is one of the leading walk-in cooler/freezer manufacturers in the world.

Wright, of Statesboro, GA, comes to Imperial Brown from Gill Industries, a Tier 1 automotive supplier headquartered in Grand Rapids, MI. He worked as the executive director of operations for the Southern Division that covered five states. His responsibilities included six plant locations with operations in welding, forming, painting and e-coating, assembling, machining and metal stamping.

Sandall said that Wright’s “diverse manufacturing background, his hands-on approach and his relentless focus on quality, process and training are a perfect fit for the next chapter in the manufacturing growth of Imperial Brown. You can expect great things from Gene and the IB manufacturing team under his leadership.”

Wright holds a Bachelor of Science degree in business management from the U.S. Air Force Moody AB, Valdosta/Paine College in Augusta, GA, and a Master of Science degree in engineering management from the Air Force Institute of Technology, Kettering, OH.

Wright said that he is excited about the team environment and family atmosphere that Imperial Brown exhibits and looks forward to being a part of the culture. At Gill Industries, he managed teams of more than 1,000 people, while helping to improve turnovers within the company by 20 percent. He worked to help streamline manufacturing processes to increase output from 70 to 98 percent and developed leadership programs to mentor and coach future and current management for personal and future growth within the company.

He helped develop new processes and automation to combine more than 20 manual processes to improve the company’s efficiency, and he spearheaded new safety programs to help reduce incident rates tremendously. Wright helped his last employer increase market shares by 4 percent and helped the Southern region obtain new business growth of $90 million in new sales in 2015.

He was also previously employed as senior executive of operations manager at Ajin USA in Cusseta, AL; as manufacturing manager of A.L.P. Lighting Components at its Lithia Springs, GA, location, and as production manager of Briggs & Stratton of Statesboro, GA.

Imperial Brown is a leader in temperature-management facilities for food service, biotechnology, medical and building construction industries. It manufactures walk-in coolers and freezers for restaurants and commercial kitchens, cold storage components for fish processing plants, ice makers for dam construction, wide range testing chambers, pharmaceutical development and manufacturing; high humidity and dry chambers, robotic enclosures, and archival storage chambers for some of the most valuable and fragile documents in human history.