| In his new role as president and COO of Worldwide Refrigeration at
Lennox International Inc. (LII), Mr. Schwartz will ensure the growth
of commercial
refrigeration, driving it to become a larger portion of LII’s overall
operation. “I feel excited and challenged by my new responsibilities.
It will be up to me and my team to research different avenues and markets
for growth, set the strategy for the global operations, and ensure we
have the right people in the right places to execute the strategies,” he
tells APPLIANCE.
Dealing with challenges is nothing new to Mr. Schwartz.
Managing a labor strike at Armstrong Air Conditioning forced him to manage
workforce issues
while providing customer service until the situation was resolved. “Through
working with my staff and labor representatives, I learned people come
first, no matter the outcome—after all, we all will eventually
have to go back to our jobs and work together,” he explains.
One
of Mr. Schwartz’s more recent challenges was helping to start
LII’s manufacturing facility in Orangeburg, SC, U.S. and its Advanced
Distributor Products operations in Grenada, MS, U.S. “Building
a successful new operation entirely from scratch brings its own kind
of excitement
and sense of achievement,” he says.
As a manager, Mr. Schwartz takes
pride in guiding others through challenges to accomplishment. “I
work closely with them to formulate an overall strategy, and then let
them execute,” he explains.
Mr. Schwartz’s
past experience in management has provided for him a broad range of styles
in managing a successful team. “I’ve
learned different people respond best to different kinds of direction,” he
says. “Sometimes you have to be a little more than a sounding board,
other times you have to play a more active advisory role, and every now
and then you need to be an out-and-out motivator.” Although challenges
constantly arise, to Mr. Schwartz, seeing others achieve professional
goals and gain success is what makes it worthwhile. “When
people start to grow professionally, you feel like you’ve played
some small role in their development, and there’s a lot of satisfaction
in that,” he notes.
Before being named president and COO of LII
Worldwide Refrigeration, Mr. Schwartz was LII’s president for North
American Distributed Products business. Prior to that, he was president
and COO of Armstrong Air Conditioning
Inc. and served as vice president for Commercial Products for Heatcraft,
Inc., after Bohn Heat Transfer Inc. was acquired by LII in 1990. Mr.
Schwartz earned a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State
University.
When
Mr. Schwartz isn’t in the office, he spends time with his wife
and children and enjoys the outdoors, where he regularly runs, plays
tennis, and scuba dives. |
