Kelly Bye has been appointed as the new chief executive officer of Virginia Abrasives Corp. and subsidiary Johnson Abrasives, effective April 17.
Bye brings extensive manufacturing experience and joins the team after nearly four years with Benjamin Moore & Company, and nearly 26 years with Rust-Oleum Corporation, both in the Chicago area. He has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Finance from Rockford University. The company says his combined experience in finance, sales management, and manufacturing are ideally suited to the manufacturing company.
“I’m very excited to be joining this growing and dynamic team,” says Bye. “The company is renowned for its top-notch customer experience, from the first contact through to the way they stand behind their products and I am looking forward to strategically planning the future of the company.”
Bye will be based at Virginia Abrasives’ world headquarters in Petersburg, Virginia, and will be relocating to the region.
Virginia Abrasives says it carries a vast assortment of cutting, finishing, surface preparation, and floor care products and solutions. In 2021, the company added Jaffrey, New Hampshire-based Johnson Abrasives to their portfolio of companies. The company’s focus on abrasives for both flooring and drywall, diamond abrasives for concrete, and asphalt cutting and surface preparation, bonded abrasives, concrete power trowel blades, floor grinder tooling, and polishing pads. Private-label abrasives are a growing part of the company’s product offerings as well, letting companies market their brands on the consumable products sold in the rental, flooring, and drywall businesses.