Members of our management team are available any time to answer a question or help solve a stainless problem. Use the scroll bar for navigation to find out how best to reach our leaders.

Michael Stateczny
Executive Vice President, Plate Products

Mike Stateczny was appointed Executive Vice President of Plate Products for Outokumpu Stainless, Inc., effective May 1, 2004. In this position, he has overall responsibility for operations, marketing and management of Outokumpu’s Plate Products business unit located in New Castle, Indiana. 

Mike has 29 years of experience in the stainless steel industry, 20 of which have been with Outokumpu in various management positions.  He is a graduate of Allegheny College, with a degree in Economics.  He resides in Chicago, Illinois.

Lou Kern
Executive Vice President, Bar Products

Lou Kern, Executive Vice President, Bar Products has over 30 years of experience with Outokumpu. Throughout his career, he has held various sales, marketing and operations positions.

Lou has been directly involved with the Bar Program since 1984, as Director of Marketing, Long Products. Most recently, he served as Vice President/General Manager

Bar Products, when his responsibilities included management of bar operations in Richburg, South Carolina.

Lou was appointed to his current position in August 1998, and has full commercial and operational management responsibility for Bar Products in the North America.

Lou earned a degree in Industrial Engineering in 1974 from the Newark College of Engineering.

Paul Carpenter
Executive Vice President, Pipe Products

Paul Carpenter, Executive Vice President of Pipe Products, has 28 years of experience in the stainless steel industry. He has full commercial and operational management responsibility for Pipe Products which are produced in Outokumpu’s Wildwood, Florida facility.

Chuck began his career in 1977 as a field sales representative with Allegheny Ludlum, and rose to the position of Plate Marketing Manager in 1986. He joined Avesta Stainless as Plate Marketing Manager in 1990 and a year later added sheet marketing to his responsibilities. In 1993, following the merger of Avesta AB and British Steel Stainless, Chuck was appointed Director of Sales and Marketing for core products and was promoted to VP in 1996. In 1998, a restructuring to Product Line management presented the opportunity for a role as General Manager of Import Coil Products.  The merger of Avesta Sheffield and Outokumpu Stainless and the integration of these businesses and organizations led to his appointment to his current role.

Chuck serves on the Market Development committee of the Stainless Steel Institute of North America, and is an Executive Council Member of the Metal Service Center Institutes' Specialty Metals Division.

Chuck and his wife, Becky, are empty nesters residing in Naperville, IL. Their three children are all young adults making their way in the world.

Elisabeth Torsner Vice President, Market Development

Elisabeth has an extensive 37-year career in the stainless steel industry.  Over 30 years have been  spent with Outokumpu or its predecessors.

She began her career doing research on high temperature properties of steel. She joined the Group in 1975 and held positions in Quality Control, Market Development, Logistics and became General Manager Billet and Bar rolling at the

company’s Degerfors, Sweden mill.

In 1990, Elisabeth was appointed General Manager of the Steckel Division in Avesta, Sweden, responsible for the new Steckel rolling mill. With $115 million, it was the largest investment to date in the history of Avesta AB. It was also the first mill with fully automated process control from entry to exit.

In 1995, she joined the North American Division business unit in the Coil Products area. She was appointed to her current role in August 1998. Elisabeth is responsible for technical market development; technical service, R&D programs for product and process development; technical project expertise to capital expenditure schemes, environmental development and coordinating quality management systems.

Elisabeth received a Master of Science degree in Metallurgy from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, specializing in Materials Technology. She has also attended the General Management course at the IFL Business school.

Melissa Ann Bales began her career with Outokumpu in 1994 as a coordinator in North America's IT Department.

During her tenure with the company, she has been  responsible for numerous advances in the IT Department, including the centralization of IT within the North American business units.

Over the years, Melissa's restructuring of the IT organization has created a level of efficiency and productivity that has eliminated the need for roughly 84 percent of IT personnel. 

Melissa has implemented collaborative tools such as the Intranet, Internet, and Customer Extranet. She replaced all software systems throughout North America, including new shop floor control, production planning control and order entry systems.  Most recently, she coordinated and carried out the complete integration with the Outokumpu Group's infrastructure and systems.  

Melissa was promoted to the position of Vice President, Information Technology & Systems Development, North America in May 2000.  Prior to joining Outokumpu, Melissa worked for IBM Corporation, providing systems engineering support and consulting.