Carol Kaddas, President & CEO
With a background in business management and under her supervision as majority stockholder, Carol Kaddas has offered leadership as well as fiscal guidance to the operations of Kaddas Enterprises since its early years. She also has supplied the vision for the type of family-oriented business that Kaddas Enterprises has become. Carol has additionally been instrumental in providing and expanding the facilities of Kaddas from a 3,000 square foot building in 1987 to the current 15,000 square foot facility operating since 2001. In that time, Kaddas has grown from a 2-person operation to a fiscally strong company providing employment for up to 18 associates.
John Kaddas, Innovator & Inventor
John Kaddas always had a knack for creatively solving problems. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Utah, including the study of sculpture and of industrial design, John started creating molds and vacuum-forming plastics in the kitchen oven. While working for AJAX Presses and Fiber Science, John gained valuable experience in the 1950s and 1960s as the plastics industry began to provide many products for everything from transportation interiors to waste tank filters.
In 1985, John quit his main job to focus on building Kaddas Enterprises design and production capacity, particularly through the aviation and the transportation industry. John earned DMIR (Designated Manufacturing Inspection Representative) and PMA (Parts Manufacturing Authorization) credentials from the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) representing Kaddas Enterprises and began to do more work with Amtrak rail car interiors.
In the early 1990s, another significant milestone in the company's history occurred one evening when John was watching a PBS program about birds and other animals that were getting electrocuted on power lines, resulting in migratory birds' deaths as well as in power outages. As he had always done, John wrestled with the problem and picked the brains of friends working at power companies trying to come up with a solution. In 1991, the result was a Kaddas-developed U.S. patent #5873324 design (Snap-fit BirdguarD II) that provided a way for power companies to avoid fines associated with Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act violations as well as power outages. The BirdguarD became an industry standard to protect both birds and electrical utility company assets.
