Norm Clark
Instructional Associate Professor
nclark@tamu.edu
Norm Clark joined the Industrial Distribution faculty in the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University in the fall of 2001. He has a BBA in Accounting, an MBA in Management, and a Ph.D. in Educational Human Resource Development. In industry, as director of sales for a Houston-based consulting firm, Norm developed, marketed and delivered educational programs for both manufacturers and distributors representing a variety of industrial channels throughout the U.S. Norm teaches the IDIS 656 – Leading People & Managing Performance course for the MID Program as well as undergraduate ID courses.
Tom Comstock
Senior Lecturer
twcomstock@tamu.edu
Tom is a current board member for Relevant Solutions, Test Equity and Relevant Power Solutions. Previously Mr. Comstock was CEO of Rawson from February 2003 until December of 2016 (It was sold by LKCM to ERIKS in 2013). Prior to joining Rawson, Mr. Comstock was the Chief Operating Officer of Furmanite, a petrochemical service company. Mr. Comstock spent 16 years with Keystone International, a flow control company, and served as President of the Keystone International’s Industrial Valve Group in Europe for three years. Mr. Comstock received an MBA and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Texas A&M University. He teaches the IDIS 664 – Distributor Profitability course.
Read Frymire
read.frymire@tamu.edu
As a visionary business strategist, Read has thirty-four years of experience in industry building diverse teams and growing companies. He was the Chairman and CEO of Frymire Services, Inc, an HVAC-R and Plumbing mechanical services company. Among his many accomplishments, Read developed and executed corporate leadership and equity succession plan, orchestrated new commercial and consumer market penetrations, reinvented or closed stalled underperforming business units. He has been successful in different business cycles by focusing on strategy, marketing, mergers and acquisitions, operations, risk, banking relations, labor pool shortages, pricing models and critical projects. Read currently is Business Development Manager, NA, for Sirane, Ltd. He teaches the IDIS 664 – Distributor Profitability Course.
Ron Holsey
Senior Lecturer
ron.holsey@tamu.edu
Ron Holsey is an innovative global business leader with deep industry and domain experience delivering sustainable results. Holsey has led profit and loss statements since 2003, overseeing sales, field service operations, manufacturing, project engineering, research and development, and support functions such as finance, human resources, health, safety, and environment. Holsey has a proven track record in business turnaround, transformation, organization design and development, and optimizing results through operational excellence and commercial intensity. Their expertise includes strategic planning and analysis, a culture of continuous improvement, global profit and loss, turnarounds and restructuring, sales enhancement, operational excellence, mergers and acquisitions, profitable growth, and organizational development. Holsey serves as vice president and general manager of production optimization at ChampionX, where they lead the transformation and growth of the global production optimization profit and loss statement. He teaches
IDIS 650 - The Science of Distribution.
Magnus Meier
Senior Lecturer
magnus.meier@tamu.edu
Magnus Meier is the VP and Global Head of the Wholesale Distribution Industry Business Unit at SAP. Representing the industry inside and outside of SAP, he works to provide industry thought leadership, portfolio direction and the global go to market strategy. Magnus started with SAP in 1998 and acquired extensive cross industry, solution, services and support knowledge throughout his career. He has held a variety of positions internationally, from consultant in Germany, to Manager of Industry Business Development teams in Japan and the U.S.. Magnus has a Master’s degree in economics from the Gerhard Mercator University in Duisburg with a special focus on East-Asia. Magnus serves as the industry expert professor for the IDIS 652 – Digital Distributor.
Bharani Nagarathnam
Associate Director, MID Program
bharani@tamu.edu
Dr. Bharani Nagarathnam is an Instructional Assistant Professor and Associate Director of Master of Industrial Distribution at the Department of Engineering Technology & Industrial Distribution at Texas A&M University. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Industrial Distribution. He has more than 20 years of experience in teaching, applied research, academic program management, and business development. Dr. Nagarathnam has worked on applied industry projects, consortia and professional development programs for more than 100 industrial manufacturers and distributors. He has published in academic journals and industry publications. His research areas include distribution management, human capital development, talent acquisition, training design & development, performance management, and distribution profitability. Dr. Nagarathnam holds a Ph.D. in Educational Human Resource Development and Master of Science in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M University and a Bachelor of Engineering in Production Engineering from the University of Madras, India. Dr. Bharani teaches IDIS 652 – Digital Distributor, IDIS 656 – Leading People & Managing Performance, IDIS 660/665 – Distribution Capstone Project I & II.
Malini Natarajarathinam
malini@tamu.edu
Dr. Natarajarathinam’s teaching activities surround classes in distribution customer experience, strategic industrial relationships, distribution networks, logistics and supply chain management. Before coming to Academia, she worked with several automotive companies on projects focused on optimizing transportation, material handling and decision analysis systems. Her research interests include empirical studies to assess impact of good supply chain practices such as coordinated decision making in stochastic supply chains, handling supply chains during times of crisis and optimizing global supply chains on the financial health of a company. She is the author of many peer-reviewed journal articles and case studies. She serves as a referee for many journals and is a member of various editorial boards. Her research and teaching activities have been supported by various government organizations and companies. Dr. Natarajarathinam holds a Ph.D., Operations Management, The University of Alabama; M.S., Applied Statistics, The University of Alabama; M.A., Management Science, The University of Alabama; M.S., Industrial and Systems Engineering, Auburn University, and B.E., Industrial Engineering, Anna University. She teaches IDIS 651 – Distribution Customer Experience and IDIS 660/665 – Distribution Capstone Project I & II.
Bimal Nepal
Professor, Holleran-Bowman Faculty Fellow
nepal@tamu.edu
Dr. Nepal teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in quality and distribution operations management for the ID program. Since joining TAMU, he has taught nine unique courses and made significant curriculum changes to several of them. His research focuses on supply chain management, distribution logistics & operations, quality and reliability, decision modeling, and engineering education. He has published 46 peer reviewed journal articles, three book chapters, and 59 conference proceedings papers. Dr. Nepal has served on the Board of Directors of Data Analytics and Information Systems Division of Institute for Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE), Board of Directors of American Society for Engineering Management (ASEM), co-chaired technical program committee of Annual Conference of ASEM and is an associate editor for Engineering Management Journal. He has advised 64 Master’s students in ID and co-advised one doctoral student in ISEN Department. An elected Fellow by the American Society for Engineering Management, Dr. Nepal has received numerous departmental and college level teaching, research, and service awards at TAMU. The most notable recent awards include: AFS Teaching Awards (College Level), College of Engineering Faculty Fellow (multiple times), ETID Departmental level teaching, research, and service awards (multiple times), William and an Outstanding Alumni Award from WSU’s Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering. Dr. Nepal holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (MNIT, Jaipur, India), an M.Eng. in Industrial Engineering (AIT, Bangkok, Thailand) and a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering (Wayne State University, Detroit, MI). Dr. Nepal teaches IDIS 653 – Distribution Operational Excellence and IDIS 660/665 – Distribution Capstone Project I & II.
Betsey Nohe
Betsey Nohe has over 30 years’ experience in Supply Chain, first with McCormick & Company, Inc. where she led manufacturing, planning, procurement, customer service, and distribution teams in North America for 24 years. She spent years in IT leading SAP implementations. In 2011, Betsey became the first Chief Supply Chain Officer of Morton Salt. After building a team of highly talented leaders, she developed and implemented a strategy that resulted in being recognized by customers as a top performing supply chain in the Americas. In 2021, after the very profitable sale of Morton Salt to a private equity company, Betsey decided to bring her broad supply chain experience to Gartner, a global research and advisory firm. In her current role as Executive Supply Chain Partner at Gartner, Betsey advises 20 senior Supply Chain Executives from companies with revenues from $1B to $40B in a variety of industries including life sciences, food & beverage, industrial manufacturing and hi-tech.
Betsey has a BS in Chemical Engineering from Rutgers University, an MBA and a PhD in Management where her dissertation research was “How Supply Chain Leaders Choose the Measures that Matter.”
Daniel Rey
Associate Professor of the Practice
daniel.rey@tamu.edu
Daniel brings sales and marketing experiences from both the distribution business and the energy sector. Most recently, he served as President of BPS Oil and Gas. Before that, he retired as a Senior Vice President from Nalco Water after a 27 year career, where he served in sales, marketing, operations, and general management in upstream and downstream divisions. Areas of expertise include sales, negotiating, international business structure, manufacturing, and logistics. He has a passion for people, having been instrumental in launching talent development programs in various regions, including West Africa, South Texas, and the gulf coast. Daniel teaches IDIS 650 - The Science of Distribution as well as IDIS 653 - Distribution Operational Excellence.
David Wascom
Visiting Senior Lecturer
david.wascom@tamu.edu
David spent 25 years in wholesale distribution in several sales and operations management roles. David spent 16 years at Summit Electric Supply, with the last ten as Chief Information Officer. Since 2018, he has served as SVP of Executive Programs Head of Content, at the Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASU)G). This experience allowed David to develop a unique perspective on how technology can support business operations and innovation, which I look forward to sharing during this course.
David holds a BS in Economics, an MBA from Louisiana Tech University, and an MS in Economics from Louisiana State University.