Dave Watson
The Austin Company
Dave Watson is a highly experienced engineering executive, with over 38 years of rapidly increasing responsibility in the food and beverage industry. He currently serves as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) consultant with the Austin Company for a wide variety of food and bakery products and processes. Prior to that he served as Vice-President, Engineering for Pepperidge Farm, and later as Vice-President, Engineering for Campbell Soup Company – International and Filling & Packaging. Dave also managed the design and construction of 3 greenfield bakeries for Pepperidge Farm, as well as leading the engineering integration of Snyder’s Lance into the Campbell Snacks division. He has comprehensive expertise in engineering, operations, food safety, due diligence, mergers & acquisitions, supply chain, and operational excellence.
Andrew McGhie
Shaffer Mixers
Andrew has over 30 years of experience in the bakery industry.
He joined the bakery industry in Australia in 1987 working for Quality Bakers – the largest baking company in Australia and part of the Goodman Fielder Group. He worked in many bakery positions and at Quality Bakers corporate office in Sydney.
When Andrew arrived in the US he joined Northeast Foods in Baltimore working for the Paterakis family in the bakeries supplying McDonald’s restaurants. Andrew has extensive experience with McDonald’s working for 5 years representing the McDonald’s bakers of North America at McDonald’s Corporate Office. Subsequently he joined McDonald’s Corporate Office and worked in the Product Development Group and Procurement Group and also worked for McDonald’s Europe – all focused on bakery products.
Andrew then worked for EyePro System, Inspection systems for bakery products, for 10 years heading up the North American operations before joining Shaffer Mixers, part of the Bundy Group, in 2017 where he now heads up the sales team.
Andrew has a Bachelor of Business from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia.
Jason Stricker
Shick Esteve
Jason Stricker has been in the field of ingredient automation for over 20 years, during this period he has developed a wealth of knowledge in the fields of ingredient automation and process solutions. He specializes in guiding customers from the start of a new plant design to helping customers increase their capabilities in existing facilities. Prior experience includes field engineering, project management, and sales. Jason has been called upon by producers and industry affiliates as a subject matter expert in the areas of ingredient automation/process design, explosion mitigation, and regulatory compliance. For the last 13 years he has worked in Regional and Executive Account management for Shick Esteve. In the past 5 years he has served as the Director of Sales & Marketing.
Jeff Teasdale
Campbell Snacks
Jeffrey (Jeff) has 26 years of experience in the baking industry. His first position was with Bestfoods Baking in their Management Development Program.
In 2007 Jeff joined Pepperidge Farm as Project Engineer, managing projects across Cookie and Bread operations. Jeff has worked up to Associate Director of Engineering and has project and capital management responsibilities. The bakery division grew with the acquisition of the Snyder Lance Company and formation of Campbell Snacks, for which Jeff also represents engineering for all new product development projects.
A Graduate of Penn State with BS-Industrial Engineering, Jeff holds an MBA from UConn and completed the resident Master Baker course at AIB.
Luis Vargas
Grupo Bimbo
Being in the baking industry for 30 years – most of them in the Engineering and Maintenance areas, started as maintenance supervisor and moved on to Sr. Director of Engineering. Worked engineering projects in 3 continents and several countries.
Currently in charge of National Maintenance Strategy and Engineering Project for SBG division.