Jason Garrison began his career at General Motors as an hourly team member, working in final process repair and electrical troubleshooting. Over the past 25 years, he has grown through leadership roles across manufacturing operations and engineering, building teams and solving some of manufacturing’s toughest challenges. Before his current role, Garrison served as Director of…

Zack Valdez, Ph.D., is Senior Director of Smart Manufacturing and Industrial Policy at the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), where he works to advance adoption of electrical and digital technologies that improve manufacturing productivity, reliability, and energy performance. He connects manufacturers, policymakers, and technology partners to address practical barriers to deployment, including interoperability, workforce readiness…

Honored as the Manufacturing Leader of the Year during the 2026 Manufacturing Leadership Awards, Alan Machuga is responsible for developing and implementing Rheem’s long-term technology vision strategy. He leads the company’s Global Technology Group, which includes the Controls Engineering, IT, Digital Services, and Cloud Architecture teams. Before joining Rheem in 2020, Machuga served as the…

Tracey is a strategic leader focused on helping organizations transform their front office to drive growth, elevate customer experience, and unlock measurable business value. She works with executive teams to align commercial strategy, customer engagement, and technology investments to accelerate revenue, improve retention, and increase operational efficiency. With significant experience at the intersection of business…

Suraj Sriram is Digital Manufacturing Leader at Kimberly-Clark Corporation, where he leads MES strategy, deployment and sustain operations across its manufacturing sites. Across his 15-year career spanning Kimberly-Clark, Broan and Kohler Co., he has led digital manufacturing transformation programs including MES implementations, IIoT platform deployments, Connected Worker pilots and AI-enabled predictive maintenance delivering measurable outcomes…