Republic (Davenport, IA): The company’s board of directors elected Todd Wade as a member of the board and to the position of CEO, effective October 2. Wade has been with Republic since 2012 and has served as the president of the Mechanical Division since Feb. 2022. He will be only the fourth CEO in Republic’s 107-year history.
Mark Kilmer, Republic’s current CEO, will turn 65 in December and serve as a member of the board of directors. He remains a substantial owner of Republic. In addition to these roles, Kilmer will assist Republic in a consulting and business development capacity as the company continues to grow and expand its footprint throughout the Midwest. Wade will become the first non-family member to lead Republic, which was founded in 1916 by J.S. Kimmel, and later led by Joe Kimmel Jr., prior to turning over the reins to his son-in-law Mark in 1998.
Wade joined Republic as chief information officer and later took the lead over marketing and dealer success programs. In 2018, he was promoted to senior VP of Mechanical then to president of the Mechanical Division in 2022. A native of the Quad Cities, he lives in Bettendorf, IA, with his wife of 24 years, Heather, and their four children, Laurel, Asher, Nina and Eden. He attended the University of Iowa majoring in business administration and is enrolled in the University of Iowa’s Enterprise Leadership program. He holds several IT industry certifications from companies such as Microsoft, Cisco as well as industry certifications from CompTIA.
His career as an information technology professional has spanned two decades and has included ownership of a consulting firm as well as senior operations management for a SaaS company in the automotive and credit reporting sectors. Along with his family, he is active in the Quad City community, and has served on the national distributor advisory Council for York as well as the IMARK electrical marketing & technology committee.
In other news at Republic, Robert Smith and Jim Probst have been elected to the company’s board. Smith was most recently president and CEO of IMARK Electrical and coordinated efforts of IMARK Group verticals in the electrical, HVAC/r and plumbing space. IMARK Group generates more than $16 billion in sales from 3,000 member locations annually. Prior to IMARK, Smith served in sales and marketing roles with Legrand North America.
Probst is president of Quality Home Maintenance (QHM), George Brazil Services and Patrick Riley Services in Phoenix. QHM is one of the largest residential services contractors in Arizona with annual revenues exceeding $47 million in 2022.
Republic serves HVAC and electrical contractors, as well as industrial and OEM customers. The company supplies over 40,000 products including residential and commercial HVAC systems, switchgear, controls, lighting solutions and related parts and tools. It serves over 1,000 customers out of five locations across Iowa and Illinois.