An Inside Look at Contract Management with John Knoll

The opportunity to learn something new does not come around often enough. John Knoll recognizes this truth, and never passes on an occasion to dive into a new experience. Over his 40-year career, he has enlisted in the military, become a demolition expert, worked as an emergency medical technician and even managed a greenhouse. “If you have an opportunity to learn something about any business, you might as well make extra time to learn as much as you can,” John reflected.

Knoll began his career with NobelClad in 1983 as a Research & Development Technician.  Back then, the business was known as Explosives Fabricators. Much more than the name has changed over the past 34 years, and John has enjoyed watching the evolution of the organization, especially the sales department. “Back in the day, the electricity in the sales office went out and I needed to call a customer back. John Banker, NobelClad’s former Vice President of Technology, was the only guy in the business that had a cell phone. ” Knoll recalled.

Today, John is Director of Contract Management and finds himself on the front line handling many different aspects that make up a NobelClad contract; including technical requirements, purchasing, and collaboration with the sales team.

As Knoll points out, it is easy to forget all the factors that go into flawlessly placing and delivering an explosion welded clad order. In his time at NobelClad, one thing has stayed consistent: the metals industry is hard to control. “Because of the expertise at Mt. Braddock, the explosion welding done by NobelClad is the easy part. It can be challenging to work with the unpredictable metal markets and technical requirements in our world.”

Fortunately, the combined experience of the NobelClad team along with relationships, trust, and accountability has mitigated these challenges, and reinforced NobelClad’s reputation as the world leader in explosion clad.

Outside of his work at NobelClad, John enjoys spending time with his kids and grandchildren and looks forward to the day when he can focus more of his time working on cars and growing his garden.