John Way Appointed as Chief Financial Officer for Proto Labs

Proto Labs, founded in 1999 by Larry Lukis as The ProtoMold Company, (motto: Real parts. Really fast.) has announced the appointment of a new Chief Financial Officer to replace Jack Judd. In July of this year, Judd made public his intention to retire by the end of 2014 and his replacement, John Way, will begin his appointment effective immediately.

Way is no stranger to the world of financial operations. He received his BA in Finance and Accounting in 1994 from the University of Saint Thomas, in St. Paul, Minnesota. After working for six years as a Senior Managager at PricewaterhouseCoopers, including two years in Germany, he worked his way up from Director of Corporate Development at United Health Group to become the CFO of its businesses Optum Collaborative Care, Secure-Horizons, and OptumHealth in 2010.

While serving in that capacity, he pushed Optum toward significant growth and caught the eye of the burgeoning business Virtual Radiologic. In 2012, he joined the executive team at vRad as their CFO to oversee financial, treasury, accounting, and planning/analysis functions. Immediately prior to his appointment at Proto Labs, he served as the CFO for Univita, a privately held home healthcare service provider.

Vicki Holt, herself recently appointed as Proto Labs President and CEO in February 2014, said of Way:

“John’s track record of successfully managing the financial operations of high growth companies will be of tremendous value to Proto Labs as we continue our rapid expansion both in the US and internationally. He has a solid background in business planning, operational and financial risk management and acquisition execution and integration, in addition to core financial operations. His extensive experience with the financial management of large organizations will enable John to be a major contributor in helping Proto Labs get to the next level of our corporate development.”

One of the reasons that Proto Labs is able to attract such star quality talent to their business team is because of the excellent work environment. In 2014, they earned Star Tribune’s Top Workplaces honor… for the fourth year in a row. The Star Tribune’s list of top workplaces is created by reviewing data from national survey firms that compile thousands of employee survey results. Holt explains her belief as to the reasons for Proto Labs’ continued high performance:

“We’re able to experience innovation both internally through the advancement of new manufacturing processes and externally through products that our customers are developing. That creates a place where people are genuinely excited to come into work each day.”

This is also a company that keeps growing, having recently acquired the additive manufacturing company FineLine Prototyping. In other words, Proto Labs might not just be a great place for John Way… you might want to see if they are hiring.

Let us know your thoughts on these developments in the Proto Labs Announces New CFO forum thread over at 3DPB.com.