Mark Ritchie was hired as gear tool project engineer at Star-SU. Ritchie has held a similar position at Gleason Cutting Tools for the past six years. Prior to that, he worked at Atwood Mobile Products for four years. According to the company's press release, Ritchie specializes in the design, manufacturing and application of gear hobs, shaper cutters and non-generating hobs. He has been responsible for testing HSS materials and coating combinations for customer applications. Ritchie also has experience in lean manufacturing and Kaizen implementation, has been involved in ISO-9001/ISO-14001 as a lead quality auditor and is familiar with developing, linking and applying ERP systems. Among his new responsibilities will be providing gear tool technical service and engineerng support.