Mr. Kobor is a senior executive with 30 years of experience in engineering-driven industrial companies. His background includes a mix of general management, financial oversight, and engineering positions at domestic and international businesses, including Fortune 500 companies, as well as smaller privately-held enterprises.
Mr. Kobor was named CEO of Colson Group in 2021. Mr. Kobor was also the former CEO of Edge Industrial Technologies and former CEO of Petrosmith, LLC, both Blue Wolf portfolio companies as well as served on the Board of Directors for both. Mr. Kobor also serves on the Board of Directors for Blue Wolf portfolio company, Colson Group. Immediately prior to joining Blue Wolf, Mr. Kobor served in succession as President, Power and Specialty Tools and President, Equipment Worldwide at Snap-on Inc. In those roles, he drove strong growth via targeted acquisitions, developed new products, and reduced costs through standardizing design and rationalizing the supply chain. He also previously served as a Managing Director at Bitzer SE in Sindlefingen, Germany, where he helped to steer a $700M global company through the recession. Before that, he was president of Bitzer’s North America division. He has also been EVP of Operations at Harbour Group-ACS Group/AEC, Inc., and Director of Operations in the Carlyle Compressor Division of United Technologies-Carrier Corporation. He began his career as a Welding and Shipfitting Supervisor at General Dynamics- Electric Boat.
Mr. Kobor holds an M.B.A. and M.S. in Engineering with Distinction from Northwestern University, J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management/Robert McCormick School of Engineering, and a B.S. in Structural Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo, College of Engineering.
Christophe Boucherie serves as general manager of Rhombus SAS, a Colson Group brand in France and the oldest industrial manufacturer of wheels and castors in Europe. With more than 30 years of experience, he specializes in international sales management, business development, and product management.
Boucherie joined Colson Group USA in 1985 and held a number of positions of increasing responsibility. Prior to his most recent role as general manager, he helped implement Colson Italy, focusing on developing business in southern Europe and leading sales activities in international locations such as France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Maghreb. In 2011, he helped develop Shepherd France. In 2009, when Colson acquired Rhombus SAS, Boucherie helped to develop the business and operations and doubled sales turnover in less than 10 years. He was promoted to sales director, was appointed general manager in 1993, and became a sales representative for southeast France in 1989. In 1985, Boucherie joined Colson Group USA as a purchaser, where his responsibilities included setting up supplier services and developing product ranges in Italy and Asia.
Prior to joining Colson, Boucherie served at Credit Agricole Consumer Finance, a consumer credit provider in Europe, as a futures manager.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in economy and mathematics at Paris Nanterre University.
Tomasz Wilczynski joined Colson Group Poland in 2002 and advanced to a general manager in 2013, where he focuses on developing international business in Central and Eastern Europe and leads sales activities in Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Eastland, Czech, and Hungary. With 15 years in the castors industry, he oversees all functions of the organization and specializes in business and strategic planning, product development, marketing strategy, account management, forecasting, and P&L and inventory management.
Wilczynski joined Colson Group Poland as a branch manager, where his responsibilities included setting up a company from scratch, building up a sales network, product and inventory management, business analysis, book-keeping, and controlling functions. Prior to joining Colson, he served as sales and marketing manager at Belet, one of the largest material handling companies in Poland, where he focused on leading sales and marketing activities and driving global sales in the East of Europe to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic States.
Wilczynski earned his master’s degree in marketing and management from the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan Law School.
Gabriel J. Gonzalez has served as a general manager of Colson Group- IMSA since November 1990. With 35 years in the manufacturing industry, he specializes in product and process design, plant administration, product costing, and sales.
Gonzalez joined Colson Group-IMSA in March 1988 as a project engineer focusing on design, installation and startup of a complete pneumatic industrial wheels manufacturing line. Prior to Colson- IMSA, Gonzalez served as a process engineer at Dana Corporation, where he was a company leader in auto parts and engine components manufacturing at the Medellin, Colombia, facility. His role also consisted of aluminum piston design and piston plant management.
Gonzalez serves on the board of directors of the Medellin, Colombia, Convention Center and various volunteer groups. He earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from The Pontificia University in Medellin, Colombia, and a Master of Science degree from Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, California.
With 10 years of experience in sales, Ernst Jan Venema serves as general manager for Colson Europe B.V. in Veenendaal, Netherlands where he is responsible for operations and purchase management.
Venema joined Colson Europe B.V. in March 1996 as a sales manager, where his responsibilities included leading the sales team and managing key sales accounts. Prior to joining Colson Europe B.V, Venema most recently served as purchase manager at Mitutoyo, a Japanese precise measuring instrument manufacturer in Veenendaal, Utrecht, Holland from 1991 to 1996. During his time there he lived for 6 months in Japan in order to start up a new plant to manufacture coordinate measuring machines in Holland. He also served as purchaser for Yokogawa in Amersfoort Utrecht, Holland, a leading company in the oil and gas industry.
Venema earned his bachelor’s degree in purchasing in Utrecht.
Tom Blashill serves as chief executive officer of Colson Group Holdings, Inc., the largest manufacturer and distributor of caster and wheel products in the world. Since 2013, Blashill has led the Colson team through the transformation of businesses previously managed separately into an integrated global company. He brings more than 25 years of executive experience to the company.
Prior to joining Colson Group, Blashill served since 2009 as president of the Marley Engineered Products and Weil-McLain divisions of SPX Corp. in Burr Ridge, IL. In that role he integrated the two businesses within the HVAC market, improved the manufacturing and supply chain and implemented innovative product strategies to drive profitable growth. He was also president of SPX Corp.’s Filtran unit in Des Plaines, IL where he was responsible for the global business supplying automatic automotive transmission manufacturers throughout the automotive industry. During this time, Filtran opened a new manufacturing facility in Beijing China for supply to the local OEM transmission manufacturers and well for export of OEM product to Japan.
Blashill earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan and earned a Master of Business Administration in finance from the University of Chicago.
Dennis E. Jones is Colson Group’s vice president of global product engineering, bringing more than 33 years of manufacturing-based experience to the company. In this role, Jones specializes in advancing Colson Group’s global technology and new product development process.
Prior to his current role with the company, Jones served as the vice president of operations for Colson Group USA under the One Colson initiative from 2012 to 2014. He began his career in the caster and wheel industry in 1994, when he joined St. Joseph, Michigan-based Shepherd Caster Corp. as the director of operations. He was later promoted to vice president of sales and marketing in 1998 and advanced to president of the company in 2001.
Before joining the caster industry, Jones served as manager of manufacturing engineering from 1984 until 1994 at Detroit Steel Products, a Tier 1 automotive supplier to the medium- and heavy-truck industry in Morristown, Indiana. In this role, he oversaw all aspects of the manufacturing engineering support group, including machine and plant automation, industrial engineering, tooling engineering and management of a three-shift maintenance and tool room crew.
Jones has been active with the Cornerstone Chamber of Commerce in St. Joseph, Michigan, where he was named Entrepreneur of the Year – Manufacturing Sector in 2009 and was recognized by the State of Michigan for his work at Shepherd Caster Corp. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
