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28 Undercar Digest C hris Ostrander was recently appointed CEO and president of AP Exhaust Technologies. In an exclusive interview with Undercar Digest, he answered these ques- tions for Editor Jim Wilder. 1. You have a broad background in automotive, including Cooper Tire & Rubber and Eaton Corp. What made you decide to accept taking the helm at AP Exhaust Technologies? I've been blessed with the opportu- nity to work for two excellent multi- billion dollar public companies over the last 10 years. Eaton was an ex- tremely process-oriented company where the majority of my time was running automotive parts businesses that we supplied to the OEMs. Cooper was my first foray into the aftermarket where I was able to leverage the pro- cess disciplines I learned at Eaton to greatly improve Cooper's operations. AP gives me the opportunity to lead a privately held company where I can influence results of the entire enter- prise, building off the best of what I learned managing OEM businesses at Eaton and Cooper's aftermarket busi- ness. 2. What are the biggest challenges in the exhaust industry today? The industry is certainly going through a transformation and a slow- growth period driven by the quality of exhaust systems and how long they now last. That has led to industry consolidation over the past several years, leaving really only two major full-line suppliers in the industry in AP Exhaust and Tenneco. At the same time, there is also a significant shift from traditional muffler and pipe vol- umes towards more catalytic convert- ers, thus increasing the content of an exhaust system. 3. What changes have you made or do you plan to make in the fu- ture? Again, I am trying to bring the best of both worlds to AP – OEM and aftermarket. In the operations, I've brought in new leadership that has similar expectations to mine in terms of quality and cost reduction to ensure we have the best available aftermarket product available. On the front end of the business, we are revamping our entire new product introduction and new product-development processes to ensure we are able to arm our cus- tomers with the newest and broadest portfolio of products available in the market. Our goal is to be first market – have the best coverage, the best fill rates, and ultimately be the best sup- plier in the market with which to do business. 4. Exhaust is a relatively flat mar- ket, except in the areas of emis- sions and performance. Could those two areas be expanded? We are absolutely expanding our capabilities in both of these segments of the market. As you know, AP has a full line of catalytic converters of which we are vertically integrated to support just about any emissions ap- plication our customers require. Therefore, we will continue to expand our capability in this critical segment of the market to include getting into the heavy-duty emissions market with DPF (diesel particulate filters) and DOC (diesel oxidations catalyst) ap- plications coming soon. In fact, one OEM supplier who visited our Aristo catalyst facility commented that our coating process was "The most ad- vanced process in the industry." Similarly, we will leverage our ex- pertise in the performance market as well. AP has been generally underpen- etrated in this segment and we intend to place specific focus on growing in this business. We have some great brands from which to build from as well. From Cherry Bomb and XLerator to Silverline and TruckEx, we will lever- age these brands to support our cus- tomers' growth strategies to allow them to have differentiation in the market. 5. AP and Walker are the only two full-line exhaust manufacturers in the United States. Does that put AP at an advantage or do niche exhaust companies now get more attention when there are only two full-line companies? Many people in our industry don't realize this, but AP has been in busi- ness since 1927 – nearly 90 years! Given AP's vertically integrated man- ufacturing model from steel tube man- Questions Answered AP's New CEO & President Chris Ostrander