The Performance Warehouse Association presented its awards for Person of the Year and Manufacturer of the Year awards during the Industry Awards Banquet at the 2007 SEMA Show.
PWA Person of the Year - Dan Gresham
Dan Gresham
Daniel R. Gresham is an operating executive with more than 30 years of management and investing experience. He earned a BA in economics from Davidson College in 1968 and served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, including a tour in Vietnam. He then obtained his MBA from Tulane University in 1973.
After leaving graduate school Dan joined Allied Signal where he worked as a financial analyst for two years. From there he moved to Continental Can Co. where he served in a variety of staff and operating positions. In his final assignment at Continental Can he was President of the General Packaging Division and had P&L responsibility for a $200 million packaging business with 1,100 employees and 13 plants.
In 1987 Dan and the previous Chairman of Continental formed a leveraged buyout firm, New Canaan Investments, and made a series of investments both in the United States and Europe. In 1996, Dan and his partners at NCI joined with Fremont Partners in the acquisition of Kerr Group, Inc., a publicly-traded specialty plastic closure company.
Following his work on Kerr with Fremont in 1996, Dan and his partners purchased Dynojet Research, Inc., where he assumed the role of CEO. Dynojet has a large presence in the motorcycle aftermarket parts industry as well as the automotive aftermarket as a developer of diagnostic performance testing equipment.
In 2000, Dynojet was sold and Dan retired to his home on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. In early 2004 he failed retirement and reentered the performance world. He and his new partners purchased MSD Ignition where he currently serves as CEO.
Dan has been married to Judy for 39 years and they have a son who is an F18 pilot in the Navy.
PWA Manufacturer of the Year - MSD Ignition
Like many companies in the performance aftermarket, MSD Ignition was started in a garage by a man who needed a better ignition. Today, MSD is the leader in performance ignition technology and is used on the fastest and quickest engines in everything from NASCAR to powersports and top fuel dragsters.
MSD Ignition now encompasses over 125,000 square feet of manufacturing and developing space in El Paso, Texas. The company employs over 400 employees including an excellent core of highly trained engineers, technicians, assembly specialists and a host of performance enthusiasts. Together this group designs, develops, tests and manufactures a diverse line of performance electronic components ranging from ignitions and magnetos to alternators and fuel injection. MSD products have revolutionized performance and racing ignitions in virtually every form of motorsports!
For more information on PWA, visit www.pwa-par.org