The North American Water Heating business unit of A. O. Smith Corp. has hired Gregory A. Reynolds as its vice president of engineering. Reynolds will be in charge of leading the residential and commercial water heater product engineering for North America.

Reynolds succeeds Darrell Schuh, who was recently promoted to vice president and general manager of water systems and APCOM.

“Greg brings 25 years of experience in both commercial and residential design engineering to his new role,” said David R. Warren, president and general manager of North American Water Heating. “He has in-depth knowledge of our products, operations, and processes and is well known to many of our customers.”

In his most recent role, Reynolds was the director of commercial engineer for the company at its McBee, S.C., location. He managed a team of 61 engineering professionals.

New research center in Milwaukee

In other company news, on Oct. 5, A. O. Smith broke ground on a new, 42,700-square-foot corporate technology center in Milwaukee. The new research center will include water-heater and boiler-performance test labs, water-treatment labs, an air test lab, as well as specialized development labs.

The company expects construction to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2018.

“Whenever we talk about the fundamentals for A. O. Smith’s success, innovation is always a major part of the discussion,” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ajita G. Rajendra said during the groundbreaking event. “One of the reasons for this company’s success for more than 143 years is our ability to identify changing customer needs and develop new products and new services to meet those needs. We have invested a great deal in our global engineering organization over the last several years. This new facility is just the latest in that series of investments. It will give the world-class talent who make up our corporate technology team a world-class development center in which to do its work.”

A. O. Smith President and COO Kevin J. Wheeler added: “We wanted to keep the new facility right here in Milwaukee. Having it adjacent to our world headquarters with the ability to bring our guests from around the world to both facilities, in close proximity to each other, is a great advantage.”