Craig Wehr and the art of making things easier

A single invoice is an unlikely monument to an executive career. Nobody cuts a ribbon for one. Yet when Craig Wehr explained what had changed at Zurn during his early years as president, the ability to put the company’s products on one invoice was among the improvements he chose to discuss. Anyone who has tried to buy several things from several divisions may appreciate the achievement. Administrative simplicity has a devoted audience, even if it rarely gets a standing ovation.

That detail offers a useful way into Wehr’s working life. His career passed through regional sales, national sales, marketing, business development and operations before reaching the presidency. Across those jobs, the question became larger: how could a company with many products and moving parts become easier to deal with? The answer would involve software, warehouses, training rooms and people answering customer questions before an order reached a loading dock.

A territory before a title

Wehr joined Zurn in 1993 as sales manager for the Southeast region. He had studied business administration at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania. His subsequent responsibilities included national sales management for the Sanitary-Dash manufacturing sector and sales and marketing leadership for Commercial Brass. In 2006, he moved into Zurn Industries to lead business development. He later ran the specification drain business as vice president and general manager.

In January 2013, his promotion to president of Zurn Industries became public. The appointment announcement emphasized his experience and credibility in the marketplace. It was a promotion from within a business he already knew through several entrances. Sales had supplied one view; managing a product operation supplied another. By then, his tenure stretched back roughly two decades, long enough to have seen both the customer’s request and the organizational effort required to answer it.

The invoice was only the beginning

By 2015, Wehr was describing a restructuring called One Zurn. Customer feedback had prompted the company to bring previously varied processes onto a common enterprise platform, create a unified customer-care organization and improve its factories and supply chain. He credited associates for the work. The ambition was easy to understand: buying across the company should require less effort from the buyer.

There is a particular discipline in choosing that sort of improvement. A customer experiences a business through small encounters: finding information, placing an order, getting an answer. A company may have an impressive catalog and still make every encounter unnecessarily elaborate. Wehr’s explanation put the inconvenience on the company’s side of the desk, where it could be addressed. The result belonged in the ordinary workday rather than on a commemorative plaque.

Good intentions need loading docks

During Wehr’s presidency, the physical network grew alongside that organizational work. In 2016, Zurn moved its Atlanta-area service center to Norcross, Georgia. The new facility covered 161,000 square feet, about 60 percent more space than its predecessor. It included a showroom and training facilities as well as room for additional processing capabilities. Operations began in February.

Wehr placed the expansion within the One Zurn strategy. The company wanted to improve delivery and keep listening to its customers. The setting gives those familiar words some weight: a larger building, more capacity and a place to demonstrate products. For a business selling through representatives and distributors, service has to travel. A promise made near the top of an organization eventually needs somewhere to be picked, assembled and dispatched.

Later that year, a new center in Bensenville, Illinois, added 135,000 square feet and more than 40 shipping and receiving docks. Its location connected Zurn to O’Hare, rail services and major highways. A dedicated will-call station accommodated customers needing same-day jobsite support. Wehr connected the investment to serving the Midwest and putting products and expertise closer to demand.

There is something refreshingly specific about a will-call counter. It assumes somebody may need a part today. The Chicago center’s design made room for that urgency alongside the larger flow of inventory. The customer in a hurry and the shipment moving across a region were both part of the operating problem.

The geography extended farther in September 2016, when Zurn announced a 10,000-square-foot facility in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone. It served customers and partners across the Middle East, Africa and the Asian subcontinent. Warehousing, light assembly and customer support shared the brief. Wehr described it as a commitment to serving the region’s construction opportunity. The scale differed from Illinois; the practical task remained recognizable.

A new address, an old obligation

Zurn’s headquarters moved from Pennsylvania to Milwaukee in 2016. The new setting placed the company within a concentration of water businesses, researchers and institutions around Reed Street Yards. For Wehr, the attraction included access to talent and technology development. The headquarters incorporated a training and customer experience center, giving the move a purpose beyond changing the return address on stationery.

Milwaukee offered proximity to other organizations working on water. Wehr spoke about the possibilities of businesses and universities working together on shared challenges. It was an outward-facing view of the company’s future: expertise could be developed in company laboratories and through relationships beyond them. The building provided a place for customers, designers and architects to encounter the business in person.

Back in Erie, however, a moved headquarters had left some residents with the impression that Zurn had departed altogether. Wehr attended the opening of a new 20,000-square-foot testing laboratory there in April 2019. About 100 people attended the lunch and ribbon cutting. The lab occupied a former machine shop and allowed roof drains to be tested on-site under demanding conditions.

It was also an occasion to explain that the company still built drains in Erie. Wehr declined to disclose the investment amount. His message about the city was direct: “We are investing in Erie and we are going to grow in Erie.” An executive discussing a move elsewhere can talk about the future in abstractions. A laboratory gives people something they can walk into.

The confidence a colleague leaves behind

A few weeks later, on May 8, 2019, Wehr joined a different gathering in Paso Robles, California. Zurn dedicated its remodeled training center to Jon Everett, a colleague whose 34 years at the Wilkins operation had included extensive work on backflow and pressure regulation. Everett’s family, friends and coworkers attended, alongside local officials. The center could accommodate 36 students and was expected to host weekly training.

Wehr’s tribute to Everett offered a more personal vocabulary than an expansion announcement. He described a teacher who gave others “the gift of confidence.” The phrase recognizes an effect that a product catalog cannot capture: someone who understands the equipment can help another person feel capable of using it. A colleague’s knowledge becomes more valuable when it can leave the colleague’s head.

“the gift of confidence”

Craig Wehr, remembering Jon Everett’s training work

The wording also suits the choice to keep a training room in Everett’s name. New students would arrive to learn practical skills, and the room would retain a connection to the person who had helped make that work matter. The dedication placed a long-serving associate inside the company’s continuing routine, where the next class would encounter him.

Making room for other people’s expertise

Wehr’s public comments about colleagues repeatedly returned to execution and customers. When Scott McDowell became vice president of sales and marketing in 2018, Wehr highlighted his ability to simplify execution. McDowell’s responsibilities included sales strategy, brand marketing and the customer experience, along with businesses in Australia, Canada and the Middle East. The appointment distributed a wide brief across another experienced leader.

The product range expanded too. In January 2020, Zurn announced the acquisition of Just Manufacturing’s assets, adding stainless-steel sinks, faucets and accessories. Wehr emphasized the fit with the existing portfolio. Later that year, an agreement to acquire Hadrian brought washroom partitions and lockers into the discussion. He pointed to its customer focus and complementary culture. These announcements described businesses with their own histories and expertise joining a broader offering.

On July 1, 2022, Zurn Water Solutions and Elkay Manufacturing completed their combination as Zurn Elkay Water Solutions. The pairing brought Elkay’s drinking-water products and commercial sinks together with Zurn’s water-management range. Following the combination, Wehr became chief operating officer. After nearly a decade as president, the assignment changed again, within an enterprise that had itself changed shape.

A different kind of next step

Effective January 1, 2024, Wehr moved into an executive advisory role. Jeffrey Schoon became president. For Wehr, the change followed 30 years with the company. His announcement thanked his wife and family, mentors, colleagues, associates, representatives and customers. He planned to concentrate on selected projects, continue reporting to the CEO and support the team from a less prominent position.

He also welcomed the chance to balance work with other interests. The announcement presented that balance as a good fit for his stage of life. A long career can make the next promotion seem like the only available plot. Wehr chose a chapter with a different rhythm, while keeping a working relationship with the organization he had helped lead.

His institutional connections continue beyond the advisory title. The Zurn Foundation lists him as a director, alongside colleagues including Todd Adams and Mark Peterson. Its giving focuses on basic needs, education and the environment, with scholarships and support for associate philanthropy among its activities. It is another setting in which a company’s reach depends on many people participating.

Wehr’s career is full of objects that receive little applause: invoices, shipping docks, drains and classroom displays. Look closely and they make a fairly coherent portrait. Each is a place where somebody else’s working day can become easier. After three decades of increasing responsibility, he has left himself room to keep contributing to that work, and room to do something else when the working day ends.