James Brooks joined Valley Forge earlier this year and has moved to Phoenix to head up our Engineering and Business Development areas. An Engineering graduate from London U.K., James has lived and worked in the USA since 1995. His expertise is in being solutions oriented leading companies in Aerospace, Powergen, Defense and Fastening, with over 10 years of experience in the critical bolting segment, working in operations, business development and global strategy. We at Valley Forge are excited to have James on the team.
We recently spent some time with James and asked some important questions:
Why Valley Forge?
James: I have an opportunity to be a part of a company that is first in its field and is constantly innovating… that’s my kind of company, after all, who wants to follow when you can lead?
Valley Forge has reputation for service, quality and successful problem solving. It’s rare to find a fastener company with these qualities, coupled with in-house forging, heat treating and great vertical integration.
What is your plan?
James: The critical bolting world is changing. For many years I have been involved heavily in educating several industries – in order to bring greater awareness to the benefits in safety, accuracy, reliability and maintainability through the adoption of bolted joint tension based tightening methods [versus torque].
Our future, and frankly our “today” in Engineering involves the support of existing Valley Forge technologies and the development of new products which continue to provide many industries with access to products which provide tension-based bolting advantages.
We have thousands of tension verifying bolts now installed worldwide, many of which are now coupled with our new generation of WiFi enabled remote tension sensors.
Significant efforts are being directed towards the expansion of our wireless bolt monitoring devices. We are working with a variety of wireless and internet communication technologies: all of which will provide an ability for bolted joints to be remotely monitored.
What Will Valley Forge Engineering look like going forward?”
James: Since the beginning of the year, we invested in growing our Engineering and Research Group. With additional Electrical and Mechanical Bolting Specialists who are not only trained in design, but also problem solving. Our Engineers can help both from our Phoenix HQ and in the field. We will also have platforms on additional strategic international locations.
