Patrick Dennis McCarren
President and Chief Executive Officer
Named Chairman of the Board in 2001. Mr. McCarren has over over 35 years of experience in senior business management, sales, marketing, and business development. He has been with Flow-Eze Company since 1972.
During his career at Flow-Eze, Mr. McCarren has identified new markets for the companies product and services. In 1976, Mr. McCarren developed a national sales force to promote, sell, service the companies janitorial customers. In 1986, Mr. McCarren created The Kent Creek Line, the promotional products division of the company that supplies over 10,000 distributors custom imprinted promotional products. In 1987, Mr. McCarren created the promotional products distributor division of the company, Mindboggler's - The Idea Store, and created a 10,000 square foot showroom to thousands of promotional items. By 1989, Mr. McCarren expanded the companies contract printing business to serve the growing demand for custom imprinted sport bottles, serving two of the largest bicycle manufacturers in North America. In 1998, Mr. McCarren further grew the contract printing side of the business with the development and purchase of the companies first multi-color, large format pad printer to accommodate odd shaped 3 dimensional parts that require an imprint. In 2001, in the wake of a post 9/11 economy Mr. McCarren navigated a cautious course involving cost-cutting and other efforts to ensure the companies survival. These efforts we're successful and put the company in a more focused mind-set.
Mr. McCarren is life-long Rockford, Illinois resident. He is an alumni St. Peter Catholic School, Boylan Catholic High School. Mr. McCarren attended Rock Valley College, Northern Illinois University, and Rockford College. At Rockford College Mr. McCarren received his Bachelors in Business Administration. Mr. McCarren is one of three-children. Mr. McCarren has two-children with Susan McCarren Chapin - Kari McCarren Hazzard and Shaun Patrick McCarren. When not working Mr. McCarren enjoys landscaping, water color painting (www.masterwatercolor.com), reading, and cooking. Mr. McCarren is a member of The Cathedral of St. Peter.
Shaun Patrick McCarren
Vice President
Promoted to Vice President in 2001. Mr. McCarren has over 10 years of experience of business management, marketing, accounting, web development, e-commerce, information technology, and operations. He has been with Flow-Eze Company since 1998.
During his career at Flow-Eze, Mr. McCarren has helped the company streamline it's operations and update it's procedures. In 1999, Mr. McCarren updated the companies antiquated accounting systems and in 2000 Mr. McCarren lead major changes into it the pre-press department's workflows and equipment for maximum productivity and cost-savings. In 2001, Mr. McCarren helped realign the companies vision with strategic-planning. By 2004, Mr. McCarren helped cut overhead by overseeing a project that would maximize the companies efficient use of capacity while subdividing, remodeling, and renting under-utilized commercial and industrial space. In 2005, Mr. McCarren began international relationships with Asian vendors and began importing existing products for the company's different divisions as well as importing new products. Mr. McCarren setup a Chinese office in ShenZhen to give the company negotiating power and visibility to our Chinese suppliers. By 2006, Mr. McCarren had grown the contract printing side of the business with new projects utilizing our un-tapped capabilities. In 2007, Mr. McCarren continued to implement ways to utilize technology to streamline operations, including: online order status updates, searchable inventory of printing plates, automated production scheduling, and customer relationship management software. Mr. McCarren has also been in pursuit of strategic relationships with companies in our markets to help them cut costs by utilizing our manufacturing services. During 2008, Mr. McCarren has implemented major in-house marketing capabilities with our e-mail marketing system, allowing the company to send out 100k+ e-mails per day to our customers promoting our products and services, additionally, Mr. McCarren has been overseeing in-house development of several e-commerce sites for the company that utilize state-of-the-art technology.
Mr. McCarren is a life-long Rockford, Illinois resident. He is an alumni of St. Bernadette School, Boylan Catholic High School. Mr. McCarren received his Associates Degree from Rock Valley College, and is currently perusing his BA in Aviation from Utah State University and BA in business from Northern Illinois University. Mr. McCarren is licensed by the FAA as a Certified Private Pilot, and is completing his Instrument Rating. Mr. McCarren is married to Jessica Zierke McCarren. When not working Mr. McCarren enjoys flying, driving, filmmaking, construction, and cooking. Mr. McCarren is a member of The Cathedral of St. Peter, and serves as a Lector.