Bill Canning Continues Progression Entering New Year
CHARLOTTE, NC – Jan. 6, 2026 – Compass Precision is celebrating the new year with a change in leadership.
Compass Precision, LLC, a Charlotte-based manufacturer of customer, close-tolerance metal components for mission-critical applications, announced Tuesday it has promoted Bill Canning to CEO.
This is Bill’s second promotion in the past six months. In July, Compass promoted Bill to President.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a long, long time,” Bill said. “I’ve been learning a lot under Gary [Holcomb]. Coming off a very successful year, it’s a dream come true kind of thing.
“I’m super excited for this opportunity.”
Like with his last promotion, Bill will replace Gary Holcomb. Gary will transition to Compass Chairman.
”Bill has done everything we have asked of him, and done it very well, since he joined us three years ago,” said Gary. “He has tremendous knowledge of CNC machining and is a terrific leader.”
“Bill will be a great Compass CEO. And he has an exceptional management team around him.”
As CEO, Bill has assumed leadership duties at all 10 Compass operating companies. His promotion became effective on Jan. 1.
During the final five months of 2025, Bill oversaw seven Compass operating companies. Gary continued leading the management teams at Douglas Machining and Strom Manufacturing during the final part of last year.
Entering 2026, Douglas is the lone Compass operating company where Bill doesn’t have at least some previous relationship. Bill previously oversaw Strom for about 20 months when he first started at Compass.
On Nov. 18, Bill took on a leadership role at Trutron Corporation. Compass acquired Trutron as its 10th operating company about a week before Thanksgiving.
The new Compass CEO stressed how much he enjoys working with the management teams at all of their machine shops.
“We have such great managers at great companies, so it’s not like it’s some burdensome task. It’s really just about getting to know the companies as well as their teams and learning more about their business. I’m very passionate about that.
“Then, it’s about taking on more of the planning, strategy side of things.”
Bill will aim to repeat the success he’s played a great hand in producing at Quality Products, Gray Manufacturing and Bergeron Machine. All three of those shops reached new record heights over the past couple years.
Under Bill in 2026, Compass plans to expand its sales department to spur growth throughout all 10 operating companies.
“I’m really looking forward to continuing to work with our VP of Sales Jim Miller and the rest of the marketing group we want to add,” Bill said. “Just to build upon where Gary has positioned us so far and see if we can build further. Take it to the next level.”
Bill has worked at Compass since March 2023. He joined after serving as Vice President of Global Operations at Arrival Automotive, which is a UK-based manufacturer of commercial electric vehicles. Bill worked in that role for three years.
Before that, Bill was the VP of Operations & Program Management at Mahindra genZe for seven years.
The new Compass CEO also has a background as a tool & die maker. He worked his way up the company ladder at Henze Industries for about 15 years. Ironically, Henze is located in Troy, Michigan, where Compass made its most recent acquisition with Trutron
Bill began working at Henze after graduating from Lawrence Technological University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering.
Although Bill raved about the industries and parts the 10 operating companies serve and produce, he called the people his favorite part about working at Compass.
“We’re in a very cool industry. You have to love machining. You have to love making cool things that go on extremely cool products – vehicles all over the world in all different segments,” Bill added. “But that’s your output. Really, it comes down to the people. That’s who you interact with every day. As I’ve stated before, we have some really amazing people.”
“It’s also a lot of fun to get to know new people and get to know new customers. That’s the piece I’ve really enjoyed.”
It will be difficult for Compass to repeat its record-setting 2025 year. But Bill predicted an “excellent” 2026 and called the unknown that the year may bring “exciting.”
Compass Precision was formed with the acquisition of Advanced Machining & Tooling, LLC, Quality Products & Machine, LLC, and Tri-Tec Industries, LLC in October 2019. In August 2020, Compass added Gray Manufacturing Technologies, LLC as its first add-on acquisition.
Seven months later, Douglas Machining Services, LLC became Compass’s second add-on acquisition in March 2021. R&D Machine, LLC was acquired in April 2022, Strom Manufacturing, LLC in July 2022, and Bergeron Machine, LLC in April 2023, becoming Compass’s third, fourth and fifth add-ons.
Compass added Trutron and Pocasset Machine during 2025.
All Compass operating companies serve a diversified group of blue-chip customers in the aerospace & defense, space, semiconductor, medical, industrial automation, power generation, telecommunications, high tech, and specialty industrial markets.
In addition to expansion via acquisition, Compass has also grown significantly since its formation in 2019 by investing aggressively in advanced equipment and adding new customers drawn to the company’s mantra of “we do the tough stuff”.
In particular, Compass has concentrated its CAPEX expansion on machines capable of running unattended, lights-out, and/or in multi-tasking mode whereby previous discrete CNC machine processes are combined into a single operation.