Kitagawa-NorthTech Hires New Regional Sales Manager

Kitagawa-NorthTech, Inc. (Schaumburg, IL), a manufacturer of standard chucks, advanced chucks, custom engineered workholding and steady rests, has announced that Mike Roberts of ITEX Workholding (Cypress, TX) has joined the company as their new regional sales manager for the Southwest region of the U.S.  His territory includes Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. A seasoned veteran in oil and gas workholding chucks, he will be selling and supporting Kitagawa’s complete offering with a focus on oil and gas workholding.

Their oil and gas workholding systems include air chucks, big bore chucks, heavy duty steady rests, custom engineered fixtures, Tri-Kote™ chuck lubricant and diagnostic tools, such as their Digital Grip Force Analyzer Software™ and Kit for determining and gripping force performance. These solve heavy duty workholding applications in onshore and offshore drillings rigs and fracking. Some popular tooling and applications in oil and gas country for their workholding products include pipes, casings, valves, tool joints, flanges, couplings, pumps, fishing tools, down hole instrumentation and fracking components.

Roberts has had a longstanding history and connection to Kitagawa chucks starting with his first inside sales position in the machine tool and workholding industry. In 1990, he started his career at Rex Supply in the machine tool and workholding division as a master distributor representing Kitagawa chucks. The Rex workholding division was later acquired by Regal Machine and he continued in a sales capacity for the company. In 1997, he co-founded ITEX Workholding, specializing in serving the workholding needs and requirements of oil and gas tool manufacturers and services companies. They were a master distributor of Kitagawa chucks and the exclusive North American importer of Noble heavy duty brand manual chucks.

“It was an easy decision to merge our operations, partially because of the long-lasting and successful relationship we’ve had for almost 30 years,” stated Roberts. “This company also has an enduring heritage, great chuck brand and reputation for manufacturing and engineering superior workholding for the metalworking industry and we believe they are a great fit for customers in oil and gas country.”

Roberts resides in South Texas and will report out of the company headquarters and full-service manufacturing facility for the Americas based in Schaumburg, which features in-house design, custom engineering, manufacturing and repair services for their workholding and other brands.

www.kitagawa.us