Philadelphia Gear Corp. opened a new sales office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in November. James Aston was appointed as Middle East regional sales manager. According to the company’s press release, Aston will be responsible for setting up the Middle East office and handling sales and service related to gear products and services within the oil and gas, petrochemical and power generation industries throughout the region. At the outset, Aston will focus on marketing the Philadelphia Gear, Western, WesTech and Delaval brands and coordinate with Middle East distributors. Aston was engineering sales manager for Sabroe Industries in Denmark, covering 19 Middle East countries. Prior to that, he was national sales manager for Kooltech in the U.K.