Joel Rood is a senior executive who has managed complex vertically integrated businesses with revenues as high as $500 million over the past 20 years. Most recently at LORD Corporation, Mr. Rood transformed the company’s culture and significantly grew revenue and profit, generating over $60 million of sustainable EBITDA growth. The improvement of the business led to over $900 million of value creation for shareholders, concluding in the successful sale of LORD Corporation to Parker Hannifin in an all-cash deal of $3.68 billion (3.5 x revenue).
Prior to LORD, Mr. Rood was CEO of Calstar Products Inc., a venture backed start-up focused on creating sustainable building products. He secured $20 million in two rounds of equity funding and $10 million in debt financing from the state of Mississippi and from a commercial lender to secure the growth of the business and to build a new plant that created 85 new jobs.
Mr. Rood has an undergraduate degree in engineering from Princeton University, a master’s in engineering from the University of Texas, and a master’s in management (Sloan Fellow) from Stanford University Graduate School of Management. He sits on the board of Smith Seckman Reid Inc, a private design and consulting engineering firm.