LS Mtron Injection Molding Machines USA LLC is a newly named entity with a newly named president of sales in Paul Caprio, a plastics industry veteran previously with Engel North America and KraussMaffei Corp. during his 30-plus years in the business.
Caprio came out of retirement Jan. 23 and started with the Duluth, Ga.-based division of LS Corp., which spun off from founding South Korean tech giant LG Corp.
After a year of golf and tennis, Caprio said he jumped at a chance to help grow LS Mtron to the point where it has enough volume to build injection molding machines in the United States.
"There was always talk in my previous life but it never went past that," Caprio said in a Jan. 23 interview. "Now I see a company that employs nearly 4,000 people already in North America at more than a handful of manufacturing plants. It doesn't sound to me like cheap talk."
LS Corp., a holding company of LS Group, is composed of LS Cable & System (power and communications cables), LS Electric (electrical equipment and automation systems) and LS-Nikko Copper (copper smelter and refiner) in addition to LS Mtron (machinery and components).
LS Group, a conglomerate with $30 billion in annual sales and more than 25,000 employees worldwide, is the largest press builder in South Korea, producing up to 2,800 machines annually from 35-3,600 tons.
To bolster U.S. machine sales and justify investment in an assembly plant, Caprio will work closely with a former colleague, Peter Gardner, who was recently promoted from business unit director to LS IMM USA president.
The pair first worked together in 1989 at Machinery Systems Inc. in Chicago, distributing CLF presses from Taiwan, then for other Asian machines as representatives for Niigata, Ube and Shinwa Seiki.
Caprio then moved on to KraussMaffei, where he worked for 25 years and was named president for North America.
"I had a lot of experience growing KraussMaffei from a very small company in America to a very big one," Caprio said of the Florence, Ky.-based company.
He also was president at York, Pa.-based Engel from January 2020 to February 2022.
Meanwhile, Gardner joined Daiichi Jitsugyo America Inc. (DJA), the importer of Niigata machinery to the U.S. He was vice president in charge of North America for more than 25 years.
Gardner brought the LS Mtron IMM business to North America through DJA and then helped orchestrate LS Mtron's buyout of DJA in 2021.
"They have been growing at a break-neck speed since then. We've been very successful and in January we formed our own entity," Gardner said.
After he was named president, one of Gardner's first acts was to hire Caprio.
"I'll be president doing the things Paul is probably bored with," Gardner said. "He'll be hyperfocused on sales and developing that customer relationship, especially with some of the big molders we want to introduce our machinery to."