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18 Hartford Business Journal | January 11, 2021 | HartfordBusiness.com New Kaman CEO Walsh's priorities: operational efficiency, acquisitions, wooing top talent By Sean Teehan steehan@hartfordbusiness.com I an Walsh is a strategic thinker. You only have to look at his educational and professional background to figure that out. The former officer and naval aviator in the U.S. Marine Corps holds a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. The 53-year-old manufacturing executive has also had a career- long focus on retooling the operations side of businesses, which often requires both big- picture and nuts-and-bolts thinking. His latest task is running Bloomfield aerospace, defense and medical components manufacturer Kaman Corp., which he's been doing as CEO since September. In his first full year as chief executive in 2021, Walsh said he is focused on rolling out a companywide operations model that will ensure every segment of Kaman's business is operating efficiently and in a complementary fashion. He also considers acquisitions a key growth strategy (with an emphasis on companies that make highly-engineered products), as Kaman keeps up with existing defense projects. "I have a chance, in a publicly traded environment, to really drive a strategy at [Kaman], and get an operating model functioning at the level we need it to, to get to that top-level performance," Walsh said. "That's what I've been able to do in my career." Kaman, like most aerospace companies, is coming off a turbulent 2020. Throughout the pandemic, Kaman's commercial aerospace and medical device divisions got caught up in the broader industry downdrafts, while its defense business remained strong. Meantime, when COVID-19 hit, Kaman was still trying to get its arms around two major deals it completed in 2019 — the $700 million sale of its distribution unit and $300 million purchase of Bal Seal Engineering, which makes precision seals and springs for the medical, aerospace and defense markets. There's still integration work to be done, Walsh said, adding that Kaman has all the pieces for growth — it's just a matter of putting them in order. Filling the gaps Before Kaman's board hired Walsh for the corner office, he served as chief operating officer at REV Group Inc., a leading designer, manufacturer and distributor of specialty vehicles and related aftermarket parts and services. Before that he worked at Textron Inc., serving as president and CEO of TRU Simulation and Training, a South Carolina-based maker of flight simulators and training devices. HBJ PHOTO: STEVE LASCHEVER