Compass’s COO Expands His Role
CHARLOTTE, NC – July 24, 2025 – Hard work pays off. At Compass Precision, the cliché applies to the newest employees at the entry level and to the parent company’s highest executive.
Compass Precision, LLC, a Charlotte-based manufacturer of customer, close-tolerance metal components for mission-critical applications, announced Thursday that it has promoted Bill Canning to President.
“I’m absolutely excited,” Bill said. “It’s building off our current structure, based on how we have divided and conquered up until this point. I’m excited to get more involved and get to know the other teams that I haven’t been responsible to date.
“And I’m excited about the opportunity to capitalize on a more cohesive unit. I pride myself in the ability to coordinate and bring the teams together and work together whether it be individually on projects or as a whole. I think that’s our biggest competitive advantage.”
Bill will assume oversight of R&D Machine in Oldsmar, Florida effective immediately. He will eventually oversee all nine of Compass’s operating companies, including newly acquired Pocasset Machine, a Pocasset, MA-based shop that became part of Compass on July 21.
Excluding R&D Machine, the two he doesn’t currently oversee are Douglas Machining and Strom Manufacturing.
However, Bill has previously worked with the leaders at Strom. When he first started at Compass, he oversaw the operating company in North Plains, Oregon for roughly 20 months.
While every operating company requires something slightly different, Bill stated he will approach his first few weeks at R&D, and eventually Douglas, similar to the way he did when he began supervising the other Compass shops.
“It’s fundamentally the same. The most important thing is establishing a relationship with the leadership at each operating company,” Bill said. “But overall, since all the operating companies are led by great people, great teams, it’s not like we’re having to come in and figure out the puzzle and fix things. They are obviously mature teams.”
After establishing relationships with an operating company, Bill then typically develops a “game plan” in conjunction with the shop’s management team. That plan could simply be to keep the status quo. In other instances, it involves some level of initiatives for improvement.
Then, Bill will create the best lines of communication for that particular management team.
Bill went through this process with Advanced Machining & Tooling and Tri-Tec Industries to begin this year. He began overseeing each of those Compass operating companies in January.
Bill has supervised Quality Products and Bergeron Machine for the past couple years. He assumed responsibility for Gray Manufacturing in 2024.
Under Bill’s oversight, these three operating companies have experienced tremendous growth. All three have undergone management changes, and Bill played a major hand in hiring each new manager.
Bill is very proud about seeing those three shops reach new levels success.
“It’s not sudden. It’s a process, but once the wheels started turning at Quality, it just took off like crazy. Just seeing the organization thrive, I’m super proud of that,” Bill said. “But I’m also thrilled, and I can’t take any credit for it, seeing the rapid shift at Gray and Bergeron.”
Compass’ new president, though, suggested he also loves the new communication between all the sister companies. Bill spearheaded a major collaborating project between Quality and Gray last year, and Compass plans to conduct more similar joint projects in the future.
“Maybe what I’m the most proud of is seeing all the inner company efforts,” Bill added. “Shops working with each other, phone calls, emails, working together. Just the amount of communication, unprovoked now, happening between all the different businesses, I think that’s significant.
“I think that might be the biggest achievement from my time at Compass.”
Bill joined Compass’ corporate staff in March 2023. He previously worked as Vice President of Global Operations at Arrival Automotive, a UK-based manufacturer of commercial electric vehicles.
He served in that role for three years. Prior to Arrival Automotive, Bill was VP of Operations & Program Management at Mahindra genZe for seven years.
Bill graduated from Lawrence Technological University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering. He began his career as a tool & die maker for Henze Industries, a Troy, Michigan-based machine shop.
He worked his way up the company ladder at Henze Industries for a decade and a half.
Bill will replace Gary Holcomb, who began serving as Compass Precision President when the company was founded in October 2019. Gary will remain the company’s CEO.
Compass plans to make an addition to its corporate staff in the coming months. After that hire, Bill will officially begin overseeing every Compass operating company.
“With everything going on, and having to operate at such a high rate of speed to meet growing customer demands, we just want to make sure I have enough time to devote attention to all of the different companies,” Bill said. “Once we bring on, essentially, another operations type person at corporate, I’ll officially transition Strom and Douglas back into the fold.”
“Bill is a joy to work with,” explained Gary. “Much of our recent success results from his leadership and drive. Compass is a much bigger and more diversified company than when we started back in 2019. And with Bill as our President, we have only just begun to exploit our potential.”
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 announced its most recent acquisition, adding Pocasset Machine as its ninth operating company, on July 21.
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.