D&H Distributing’s senior management team will assume new roles and responsibilities this spring when president Gary Brothers hands off his day-to-day duties in advance of a planned retirement.
Brothers, a 35-year-veteran of the company, will become president emeritus on April 30 and will assist with the management transition over the course of the year.
Succeeding him as co-presidents at that time will be Michael Schwab, currently purchasing VP, and Dan Schwab, currently marketing VP.
CEO Izzy Schwab will continue in his present role, and sales VP Jeff Davis will be promoted to sales senior VP.
Brothers joined D&H as a Baltimore sales rep in 1973 and became president in 1999. During his tenure he helped create the company’s electronic specialty products division (later to become the computer products division), and was instrumental in D&H’s growth over eight years from a $400 million regional distributor to a $2 billion national business.
“I’ll be making the changeover at D&H with an extremely strong management team in place, one that has terrific opportunities in front of it,” said Brothers, who plans to shift much of his focus to family, travel and his golf game.
Among other planned management changes:
- marketing director Mary Campbell will succeed Dan Schwab as marketing VP;
- purchasing director Rob Eby will be promoted to purchasing VP;
- purchasing director Tina Fisherwill be promoted to purchasing senior director; and
- purchasing director Mark Bowser will be promoted to director of purchasing operations and Canada.
“We’re thoroughly prepared for a transition that will be invisible to our customers and manufacturer partners,” said Michael Schwab. “This is a very natural progression for D&H. The customer-focused model that Gary and the D&H team before him have always practiced is engrained in our DNA. We’re committed to building on that. It will be an exciting future.”
