In
Jay Perkins
Profile
Jay Perkins gained both a career and his future wife while at WVU. His future wife, Beth, was a classmate. Jay followed Beth to Columbus and began his career at Scientific Columbus. He did traditional Industrial Engineering work.
When Jay was doing a presentation at an SME conference, Jay was offered a job by Diebold and accepted. At the time, Diebold was heavily involved in manufacturing ATMs. While at Diebold, Jay had a variety of experiences including basic IE, supervision, automation and product design. He is especially proud of his efforts to get the design engineers and those in manufacturing together to make sure that designs could be manufactured efficiently.
“In all my career moves, I’ve only sought out a job one time,” Jay explains. “Beth and I wanted to move to the southeast for more stability. I had an interview with Schlumberger, but once I saw where the plant was, I decided not to take the job if it were offered.” Jay and his future boss had an interesting meeting. “He didn’t ask me one technical question,” Jay says. “I was given the offer in the parking lot.” When Jay asked his future boss why he wanted to hire him, his boss cited two reasons:
- He came from a small town in West Virginia and would do well in their environment.
- Being both an engineering student and collegiate football player gave Jay the time management skills and team leadership he would need.
In his time at Schlumberger, Jay worked on automating the process. “We saw an increase of meters produced from 2,000 to 7,000 per day, while I was there,” Jay says.
Following his time at Schlumberger, Jay became the operations manager at four different businesses. When asked if it is tough adjusting to so many different work environments, Jay says: “You have to learn the product, the process, and the people. The people have the knowledge and it’s key that you learn how to work with them.”
In his current position at The Skinner Company, Jay is the general manager. Skinner is known worldwide for making pipe repair clamps. Skinner was formed in 1898 to serve the oil, gas and water industries. Skinner is owned by two former colleagues of Jay’s from his time at Schlumberger. Basically, Jays runs the business for the owner. “We are a streamlined and profitable company in a niche market,” Jay says.
Jay’s career has shown the diversity of Industrial Engineering. With experience in basic IE, operations leadership, technical sales, and business development, Jay has been involved in all key functions of a business.
Bio
Jay Perkins General Manager at The Skinner Company
Experience
General Manager
December 2010 – Present
Operations Manager at Hydro One Beverages
2009 – 2010 (2 years)
Operations Manager
July 2006 – April 2009 (2 years 10 months)
Manufacturing Operations Manager
June 2000 – April 2006 (5 years 11 months)
Industrial Division Operations Manager
1997 – 2000 (4 years)
Manufacturing Area Manager at Schlumberger
1988 – 1997 (10 years)
Manufacturing Engineer, Cell Supervisor at Diebold
1985 – 1988 (4 years)
Education
West Virginia University Industrial Engineering, 1980 – 1984
Fork Union Military Academy 1978 – 1979
