Brian Dutton, Kuriyama look to broader horizons

SCHAUMBURG, Ill.—Growing up in Coshocton, Ohio, a small Midwestern town of about 11,000, Brian Dutton learned a lot about the nature of people.

"I best describe Coshocton to people not from Ohio as '1 to 3 hours from anywhere in Ohio that you would have actually ever heard of,' " Dutton said. "It was a great, little town—you learn a lot about the nature of people when you grow up in a small town, and you have a natural curiosity about anything that is different from the familiar."

That curiosity has helped Dutton forge a path of his own, one that led him to a new role with a global company.

On April 8, Dutton was named president of Schaumburg-based Kuriyama of America Inc., which is part of Osaka, Japan-based Kuriyama Holdings Corp., a global supplier of industrial and commercial hoses and accessories. He succeeds Lester Kraska, who stepped down earlier this month. Kraska will continue to serve as vice president of sales and marketing for KOA.

In his new role, Dutton oversees the company's North American operations, which include five regional warehouses, a central warehouse in Schaumburg, and an additional cross-docking service center in Indiana.

KOA also operates four hose-producing factories in the U.S., however the company's network also is fed by factories in Canada and corporation-owned factories in Europe. It also maintains partnerships with European and Asian factories, and has distribution in Mexico with its Kuriyama de Mexico main warehouse and Mexican headquarters in Monterrey.

Lessons learned during his upbringing in Coshocton already have served Dutton well in his leadership role at KOA, which has been deemed an essential company during the coronavirus pandemic.

"Value your people and demonstrate that you care with your actions," he said. "That is a lot easier said than done. There is probably no better way for a team member to know that they are valued than when you implement their idea. If you can do that more and more, people will begin to care less and less about whose idea it was and will simply appreciate it as a good idea."

Dutton began to pursue sales and distribution following his graduation from the University of Dayton, where he received a bachelor's degree in communications management and minors in business management and psychology.

But his journey was not without "some journalism thrown in."

"Halfway through school, I decided that I wanted to be a newspaper man, thus the weird range of studies," Dutton said. "After graduating and working for small suburban newspapers for a little bit, and getting disenchanted with it, I started to look for sales positions."

Dutton said it was not long before he realized that selling printed business forms in an industry that was looking anywhere but printed products required a reappraisal of the situation. So he refocused on companies that produced industrial items and sold them through distribution.

That's what led to his job with Dana Corp.

"My entry into the business was in the early 1990s, working for one of the sales divisions of Dana Corp.," Dutton said. "My training program included working on production lines in several hose and fitting factories in the Boston Weatherhead division, and I sold those brands as well as Everflex-branded products for a few years before going to work for a large distributor."

In all, Dutton has been in the hose and accessory business for 26 years, with experience on both sides of the desk. The company has grown around him during the 18 years he has been with KOA, with major changes in breadth of service, customer base and business models.

"The product line has expanded tremendously and we have become a truly global company," Dutton said. "As we promote our 'Kuriyama Value,' we have hoses, couplings and accessories that cover practically every application, and the range continues to grow."

Key acquisitions have helped with the extended product line, Dutton said, and an acquisition five years ago gave KOA a manufacturing and distribution presence in the European Union.

"The customer base seemed to barely change at all for the first few years I was in the business, but in the past few years, it has changed dramatically," he said.

For many years, distributors focused on sales and end-user market penetration, but have shifted toward profitable growth and optimizing efficiencies.

"I suppose this is a natural progression as many of our 'smokestack' verticals that had very high industrial consumption in much of the 20th century succumbed to off-shoring and other things," Dutton said. "Distributors had to figure out how to get more out of a maintenance, repair and operations base that did not have a lot of organic growth—and in some cases actually shrank."

While consolidation and private equity ownership accelerated this industry trend toward smaller margins, the transition presented companies like Kuriyama with new opportunities to differentiate and focus on where MRO material fit in the supply chain.

"So now your customer base is asset-savvy, technology-savvy and much more focused on cash management," Dutton said.

This industry shift, in turn, forced companies to innovate and broaden their range of products.

"Breadth, quality, service and innovation," Dutton said. "We have arguably the hose industry's broadest line of products among manufacturers. We produce the vast majority of our products in our own factories, and fill the gaps with carefully managed strategic partnerships to provide that breadth."

Dutton said Kuriyama products are best known for their use in the extreme abrasion and food and beverage markets.

"We want to be the performance leader when it comes to how our products handle demanding applications," he said. "All of our factories are ISO-registered, and a good portion of them have either completed or are working on lean manufacturing to help us stay competitive, even though a large portion of our products are not produced in low-cost countries, but rather the U.S., Canada and the EU."

As far as industry advancements, Kuriyama has developed higher-pressure products (both rubber and plastic) that feature tight-bend radii and low resistance to bend, as well as "low flexural rigidity" products, "a phrase that nerds use when they mean 'easy to bend,' " Dutton said.

Kuriyama's engineers also continue to improve on the often difficult marriage of flexibility and light weight.

"For our material handling hoses, we continue to develop hoses that are more 'and' hoses instead of 'but' hoses," he said. "Our engineers keep broadening the range of compatible media and environmental circumstances that our hoses can be used in."

And in this online age, Dutton continues to oversee a company that employs a human touch to its communications.

"You can still talk to a human being at every Kuriyama of America service center if you want," he said.

Of all the changes in the industry throughout the past two decades, there is no question that the hose market is living through a volatile time with the coronavirus pandemic. For most company leaders, priorities begin with worker safety.

Kuriyama remains fully operational at its factories, with reduced staffs and precautions taken to maximize worker safety.

"So frequent sanitation and spacing are big points of emphasis," Dutton said. "Some production areas have been completely changed in order to better accommodate distancing. Anyone who can home-office has been set up to do so, but our warehouse personnel and production staff are in the facilities every day.

"They are my heroes," he said.

Like many other industries, the hose and accessory market has seen ebbs and flows in its segments due to the pandemic. While Kuriyama is not an automotive OEM, it has seen a decline on the MRO side of car and truck production.

"We've seen a significant hit there," he said. "Of course, a big portion of our products is involved in construction—so things like roads and bridges still have to be maintained and those are still areas of consistent consumption."

When there is a new normal for the hose industry on the other side of the pandemic, Dutton said Kuriyama will be ready with a personal touch.

"I think many still regard our company as customer-focused and easy to do business with," Dutton said. "We are not perfect, but we are striving for it. I like the fact that we can say 'yes' when a lot of people say 'no.' The fact that we develop and produce in-house makes us a very desirable choice for customers who are facing new and unique applications."