General Session
9:00 am – 9:15 am: Welcome, 50+ Member Recognition, Annual Business Meeting
9:15 am – 10:45 am: Trends in Baking Automation Panel
10:45 am – 11:30 am: Keynote Address: Automation by Didier Rosada, Red Brick Consulting
Steve Philpott
With nearly 20 years of experience in the baking industry, Steve began his career as a design engineer with a Master’s Degree in engineering and quickly found his passion while running performance trials of newly designed bakery equipment. He has always enjoyed understanding customers’ unique process needs and helping them find a customized solution. And this time spent trouble-shooting and optimizing bread lines proved to be a great spring-board into sales for Steve, as he is now the Sales Team Manager for Bakery & Biscuit at Baker Perkins Ltd. in the UK helping to find bespoke solutions for bakeries all around the world.
Presentation
Dough Development as a Function of Energy
Thursday, March 3, 2022
11:30 am – 12:05 pm
Ken Newsome
In 1988, Ken Newsome penned these words: “I want to build a company that is special – special in the way it treats its employees, special in the way it treats its customers, special in the way it works to improve its community, and special in the way it competes in the marketplace. It will be loved by those who are a part of it and respected by those who compete against it.”
With a customer focused mindset, Ken leveraged both his forward-thinking vision and business acumen to become a trailblazer in the bakery equipment world.
The relentless pursuit of excellence is the driving force behind Ken’s success. His dream was to build a world-class manufacturing company in his home state of Virginia. In 1996, he put together a team of local investors to acquire AMF Bakery Systems, headquartered in Richmond. Through a series of strategic acquisitions, as well as an alliance with Markel Corporation, AMF has become the world’s largest manufacturer of wholesale bread and bun baking equipment.
The acquisition of Tromp Bakery Equipment moved AMF into specialty items like pastry, pizza, and artisan breads. The combination with Reading Bakery Systems expanded the company into equipment for cookies, crackers, and other baked snacks. The addition of Solbern expanded the company’s offerings into other processed foods.
Ken acknowledges that this success could not have been accomplished without the support of his loving family – wife, Linda, sons David and Alex, and daughters Jennifer and Sarah. They and the 900 teammates who come to work every day to help customers make and ship their products share this honor.
Presentation
Trends in Baking Automation Panel Discussion
Thursday, March 3
9:15 am – 10:15 am
Craig Souser
Craig Souser is Chairman/CEO of JLS. He develops the primary goals, operating plans, policies, and short and long range objectives for JLS. While leading the organization toward its objectives and heading company oversight and business operations, Craig employs his industry expertise in sales and new business considerations.
Presentation
Trends in Baking Automation Panel Discussion
Thursday, March 3
9:15 am – 10:15 am
Mark Salman
A graduate of MIT 3-year executive program, with over 35 years of Food Processing experience, Mark Salman is an experienced entrepreneur having started six businesses in the industrial Bakery manufacturing, retailing, consultancy, sales and marketing fields, served on a number of company advisory boards. Joined Middleby Corporation in 2015, a NASDAC publicly traded company, and President of Middleby Food Processing, a 500 Million Dollar platform, with a total of 20 equipment manufacturing brands, focused on Bakery as well as Protein processing solutions. An innovative and passionate leader who has succeeded in building high growth companies with multicultural cohesive teams globally.
Presentation
Trends in Baking Automation Panel Discussion
Thursday, March 3
9:15 am – 10:15 am
Peter Rasmussen
Peter Rasmussen is an Industry Segment Specialist, specializing in the baking industry, at Festo Corporation. Since joining Festo in 2017, Peter’s main role has been to develop and grow relationships within the baking industry, where Festo can help OEM machine builders and end-users increase productivity, while also increasing overall food safety. Prior to making the transition to Festo, he worked for 5 years working at Bimbo Bakeries USA in various engineering roles at various facilities. Peter earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Kansas State University and currently pursuing a MBA from Colorado University – Denver.
Presentation
Trends in Baking Automation Panel Discussion
Thursday, March 3
9:15 am – 10:15 am
Chris Dodd
Chris Dodd is a mechanical engineer with a background in the oil and gas industry, having focused primarily on energy systems. Since joining Baker Perkins 3 years ago, Chris has been heavily involved in bakery equipment design, and the commissioning of high throughput plants worldwide. Chris’s perspective, having been shaped by an alternate industry, has been invaluable in challenging conventional views on dough development, forcing us to take a deeper look at what really occurs at each phase of the dough forming process.
Presentation
Dough Development as a Function of Energy
Thursday, March 3, 2022
11:25 am – 12:00 pm
Charlotte Atchley
Charlotte Atchley is the editor of “Baking & Snack.” She has spent 11 years covering all aspects of the baking industry including formulating, operations, bakery expansions and trends. Ms. Atchley also launched and hosts the magazine’s first podcast, “Since Sliced Bread,” which features in-depth conversations with leaders in the industry. She served as a session chair for ASB’s BakingTECH 2015 annual conference. Ms. Atchley has a bachelor’s degree in communication form Southwest Baptist University as well as a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri.
Presentations
Young Professionals Educational Session – Women in Baking Panel
Tuesday, March 1
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Trends in Baking Automation Panel Discussion
Thursday, March 3
9:15 am – 10:15 am