Brian Kobylinski and the business of getting better

The wall behind Brian Kobylinski is doing quite a lot of talking. In a 2018 office photograph, there are brushes, metal samples, a seat, framed pictures and an Osborn jersey. He sits at a conference table in a white shirt, surrounded by things the business actually makes. It is an unusually useful executive portrait: the products get a seat at the meeting, too.

Kobylinski, widely known as Koby, was then leading Jason Industries. Asked about the work, he described the appeal of making a business better. The idea is modest enough to pass unnoticed. Put beside the career that followed, it becomes the central thread: improve an operation, change its shape, find the people to run it, and keep going.

“There’s something that gets very addicting about transforming and making something better”

Brian Kobylinski · 2018 interview

Today he is president and chief executive officer of Riverbend Industries, a family-owned industrial business headquartered in Chicago. He is based in Greater Milwaukee. The distance between those two cities is small compared with the span of his earlier responsibilities, which included industrial and energy businesses and China. His working vocabulary has travelled well: customers, teams, operations, cash.

Riverbend adds another word: time. It can hold investments indefinitely. For an executive whose previous job involved confronting a heavy debt burden, that is a consequential setting. The machinery still needs to work. The customers still expect delivery. But the ownership structure allows the business to think beyond a scheduled sale.

Twenty-three years before the corner office

Kobylinski’s education began with a Bachelor of Arts at St. Norbert College, where he graduated in 1988. An MBA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison followed in 1993. Before joining the industrial group that would become Actuant, he worked at Fort Howard Corporation and Federated Insurance. The early résumé includes both operating businesses and insurance, rather than a straight line drawn from business school to a chief executive’s desk.

He joined Actuant’s predecessor in 1993 and stayed for 23 years. During that period, he progressed through management jobs in its former electrical segment, became vice president of business development in 2002, and took charge of Hydratight as global business leader in 2005. From 2007 to 2013, he led the industrial and energy segments. His later responsibilities included energy and China.

The sequence matters more than the procession of titles. Business development concerns what a company might buy or become. Running a business concerns what it can deliver after the plan has been approved. Kobylinski’s assignments put both kinds of work on his desk. An acquisition can be announced in a morning; integrating it is a longer appointment.

By the time Jason recruited him, his experience covered acquisitions, integration and operating leadership across multiple industrial markets. A long tenure can sound like a quiet career. This one included changes of business, geography and responsibility within the same corporate family. The company name stayed on the résumé while the job kept moving.

A turnaround with a cash register

Kobylinski joined Jason as president and chief operating officer in April 2016. He became president and CEO on December 1 that year. Jeffry Quinn, who remained chairman at the transition, credited him with addressing operating problems, strengthening customer relationships and pursuing savings across the businesses. Jason then employed more than 4,400 people in 14 countries.

Its products occupied several corners of everyday industrial life: seating, finishing, components and automotive acoustics. Its financial position required less imagination to understand. Kobylinski’s first annual letter made cash generation and capital allocation central concerns. He wanted operating cash to pay down debt and support improvements with a payback of two years or less, alongside selected growth investments.

That payback rule gives the word improvement a practical edge. A useful project had to earn its place in the budget. Factory work and financing work were connected: money released or generated by the operations could help reduce the demands made on those same operations by debt. There was little room for a decorative initiative.

The 2017 results showed why a single headline number could mislead. Net sales fell 8.1 percent to $648.6 million, yet the fourth quarter brought organic growth in finishing and seating. Kobylinski pointed to better margins and lower net leverage alongside that growth. A smaller sales figure could sit beside better performance in particular parts of the business.

The revealing admission

In his 2017 shareholder letter, Kobylinski described a changing leadership team: seven of eight members were new to their roles or to Jason during the preceding year. He also acknowledged a limit to his own approach. “I may have pushed our team a bit hard,” he wrote. Some projects had exceeded budgets, one had taken three months longer than expected, and transition inventory was too high.

The problem had a cost, a delay and inventory attached to it. Speed could produce its own bill. The admission made the account more useful: a reader could see where the work had fallen short and what needed attention.

There is a human tension here: the desire to move quickly and the requirement to get the work right. Kobylinski put both in the same account. The admission gives his enthusiasm for transformation some texture. Getting better could include recognizing where the push for action had made the work harder.

He added the chairman’s role in June 2018. By year-end, Jason reported $16 million in free cash flow and leverage of 5.1 times. In 2019 it agreed to sell its Janesville fiber-solutions business to Motus Integrated Technologies for approximately $85 million, subject to transaction conditions. Kobylinski described the intended benefits as less automotive exposure, a simpler portfolio and more liquidity.

The difficult chapter belongs in the story

Jason’s operational efforts did not prevent a financial restructuring. In August 2020, the bankruptcy court confirmed its Chapter 11 reorganization plan. The announced arrangement would reduce debt by approximately $250 million and bring the company into private ownership backed by senior secured lenders, including Monomoy Capital Partners and Credit Suisse Asset Management.

The consequences were uneven. Osborn and Milsco were to continue with a changed financial structure. Existing common and preferred shares were to be cancelled, with no recovery for their holders. A $30 million asset-based lending facility was part of the planned exit financing. The transaction created a route forward for the businesses while closing the investment chapter for those shareholders.

Kobylinski, then chairman and CEO, thanked creditors, customers, employees and vendors for their support and said the stronger financial structure would help the company benefit from work already done. Those hopes should be read alongside the cost of the restructuring. A career devoted to improvement still contains outcomes that require a harder accounting.

The episode makes his later move to Riverbend more interesting. He had experienced the relationship between operating progress and financial constraints at close range. Patient ownership offers a different framework for that relationship. It leaves the practical obligations intact, including the obligation to make choices about which businesses belong together.

A company that can keep the company

Riverbend announced his appointment on January 9, 2024. He was already an independent director, so the move brought a board member into operating leadership. Executive chair Ronald Gidwitz emphasized his industrial experience and ability to lead teams. Kobylinski’s stated ambition was to build on the company’s history through HVAC and building-envelope solutions that improve customers’ surroundings.

The business acquires and operates North American manufacturers in building and industrial products. Its published approach pairs management partnerships with shared operating practices and selected centralized functions. Local entrepreneurial cultures are part of the proposition. The resulting assignment is a balancing act: make a group work together while retaining the knowledge that makes each business useful to its customers.

Riverbend’s investment criteria make that proposition concrete. It seeks businesses with $10 million to $100 million in revenue and $1 million to $10 million in EBITDA, with investment sizes of $5 million to $30 million. Its transaction menu includes family and founder recapitalizations, management-led buyouts, add-on acquisitions and corporate divestitures. Differentiated products and committed management teams are among its stated preferences.

There is room here for the experience accumulated at Actuant and Jason: evaluating businesses, integrating them, allocating capital and appointing leaders. There is also the flexibility to keep an investment. The calendar can accommodate a longer plan, though every plan still has to survive contact with the operating business.

Doors open. The portfolio narrows.

In spring 2025, Riverbend bought Houston-based American Door Products, including its Pearland Industries division. The business joined a Building Solutions group that already included McKinney Door Solutions and Serenity Sliding Door Systems. The acquisition extended the group’s reach into Texas and brought together more than 100 employees across the combined Colorado and Texas businesses.

By January 14, 2026, American Door Products and McKinney were operating under the American Doors brand. Their alignment covered processes, inventory, fabrication and project execution. Brian Koski took leadership of the unified organization as American Door’s Dave Popa retired after more than 45 years as its president. The new name came with an operating platform behind it.

Other appointments filled out the work. Jim McTaggart became president of Williams Comfort Products in May 2025, bringing experience from Stanley and Enerpac. Jim Japczyk became Riverbend’s CFO effective January 26, 2026. Kobylinski welcomed Japczyk’s combination of financial discipline and operating experience. The jobs connect the portfolio’s product businesses with the financial decisions needed to support them.

Then, in August 2026, Riverbend sold its Tulsa flange-making subsidiary Carlson to an affiliate of the Zink Family Office. Kobylinski said the sale completed Riverbend’s transformation toward its core HVAC and Building Solutions businesses. An owner with the option to hold indefinitely had chosen to sell. Patience left room for a decision about fit.

Return to that office photograph and its crowded wall. The objects make a fitting backdrop for Kobylinski’s career because they bring corporate language down to something tangible. A seat, a brush, a piece of metal, a door: someone has to make it, deliver it and stand behind it. His work has moved across businesses and ownership structures. The test remains stubbornly practical: what, exactly, has got better?