New GM at William Green

William Green Pty Ltd, Australia's only manufacturer of dental units, has appointed Mr Simon Olah (pictured above left) as its General Manager, allowing owner and Managing Director John Green (right) time to concentrate on research, new product development and quality assurance.

"My role is to take over the day to day operations of the business from John and drive it forward," Mr Olah said. "William Green has a great future and I'm looking forward to the challenge. As a manufacturer and also a distributor of both our own products and several leading brands of dental equipment, we have the best of both worlds.

John can now concentrate on our manufacturing arm and ensure we have new products in the pipeline and that our existing range is produced to the utmost quality and standards. Part of my role is to then oversee the sales and marketing of all the products we distribute as well as the technical service and support we are renowned for to ensure our customers have minimal downtime if a problem does arise.

"We have a great team in place already and are now recruiting for some new key positions we have created. Once we have the new management structure in place, we'll then be working towards an increased customer focus and even better after sales support."

Mr Olah was promoted to the position after seven years with the company, most recently as technical services manager. Prior to working at William Green, he held management roles in the electronics and security sectors.

William Green is a third generation family business with the widow of the founder, Hilda Green, her son John and his two sons Ryan and Simon, all working within the company. Mr Olah's appointment is yet another milestone in the company's 61-year history that has seen it grow from a parochial Australian manufacturer, to a retailer of a range of dental equipment nationally including the highly successful Kodak (née Trophy) range of imaging products. In 2005, the company exhibited at IDS 2005 in Germany and later that year set-up direct distribution in the New Zealand market. In 2006, the Stern Weber range of Italian-made dental units was introduced to compliment their Australian-made units and in 2007, the company walked away from IDS 2007 with over 100 firm offers of interest for international distribution of their unique orthodontic cart system. The company also continues to be a major supplier to the NSW and Queensland Governments.

"Moving forward, we'll be concentrating on our core products - the Challenger and Tantus units we manufacture, the Stern Weber units we import and the complete range of Kodak imaging products," Mr Olah said.

"We'll be focussing on providing an exceptional level of service and support that will keep our customers coming back for more."