Chase Thompson, 35
Continuous Improvement Manager
Hubbell
Chase has spent 12 years in the industry, all of them with Hubbell. “Hubbell hired me right out of high school,” Chase recalled. “I didn’t know much about the industry itself. I had interned at an automotive manufacturer and a consumer food manufacturer while in college. Hubbell Lighting (at the time) had a brand-new building in Greenville, S.C., which caught my interest. There was a packaging engineer position posted on its careers website, so I reached out to several people in the packaging industry who worked with Hubbell and asked if they knew much about the company. After hearing nothing but positive remarks, and doing a little research myself, I applied for the position.”
Chase was later promoted to senior packaging engineer, then to Lean engineer, senior continuous improvement engineer, manufacturing engineering manager, production manager, and plant manager before moving into his current role s continuous improvement manager.
“I never thought I would get into the lighting or electrical solutions industry, but I’ve continued to learn, and it has become so entwined in my life that I look at every socket, light, and control to see where it was made,” he said. “In my current position, the continued appeal comes from all manufacturing processes and their challenges. I get to work with all our manufacturing sites to see where we can improve on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Each project has completely different variables, making each one a puzzle that I get to solve.”
Asked about a challenge the industry is currently facing, Chase pointed to the difficulty finding workers. “This is the case in almost all industries at this moment,” he said. “For me to work around this and meet our daily demands, I work our facilities to become safer, more efficient, and deliver better quality products. In these ways we will have fewer people out of work, getting more product out per person, and less returns and failures.”
Looking ahead, Chase plans to move up the corporate ladder to a director level position. “To prepare for this, I’m currently working through the MBA program at Clemson University with another year left to go,” he noted.
What would Chase tell someone just entering the industry? “I would tell them to learn everything you can about the products your company makes,” he said. “Not just what those products are, but also how they are made and the environments they can be used in. Once you learn those things you start seeing how they can apply to your job—and even your daily life.”
Outside of work, Chase enjoys traveling the world with his fiancé, hanging out with friends and family, and enjoying good food either by cooking or eating out. “We try to get as much outdoor activities in as possible, whether it’s walking around the city, hiking through the mountains, or going on bike rides,” he noted, adding he is also a sports fanatic. “I played all sorts of sports growing up, and now watch them all. I’m a longtime fan of the Philadelphia Eagles, Philadelphia Phillies, Philadelphia Flyers, Manchester Utd, and the Clemson Tigers.”
Each year tED magazine recognizes 30 of the industry’s best and brightest under the age of 35. Please visit tedmag.com/30Under35 for nomination information and updates about the 2023 program. Questions can be sent to tED Editor Misty Byers at mbyers@naed.org.
Tagged with 2022 30 Under 35, 30 under 35, people