Lightning Technologies, the Oxford-based pallet manufacturer, named Damian Kassab as Executive Vice President and Vice Chairman of the Board, according to Lightning Technologies’ Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board Jeffrey Owen.

Kassab was most recently the Managing Partner and Director of Solyco Advisors, a Rochester, Mich.-based boutique strategic-advisory firm focused on delivering intelligent business solutions for its clients. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Colorado.　Kassab is a resident of Rochester.

Lightning Technologies produces a virtually indestructible, lightweight, hygienic and fire-retardant pallet. Each highly engineered, sustainable wood pallet is coated with a Polyurethane- Polyuria hybrid coating, making it durable, anti-bacterial and antifungal.

Each pallet includes an embedded low energy Bluetooth beacon to track and monitor location, temperature, humidity and impact with certified carbon-credit capability. Because of their construction, the pallets are also capable of being used toward a certified carbon credit.

In addition, Owen said the lifespan of a Lightning pallet is 10 years compared to the six-month lifecycle of a traditional wood pallet.

Lightning Technologies was founded in 2015 by Owen, who Forbes magazine has called “The Prince of Pallets” and Food Logistics magazine named one of the “Rock Stars of the Supply Chain.”

Owens estimates there are two billion pallets used in the United States, six billion around the world — but the ones made in Oxford are unique.

He was quoted in an April 2019 edition of Modern Materials Handling magazine as saying, “This is the only pallet in the market with an active RFID (radio-frequency identification device) that continuously beams information to a Cloud-based dashboard to report a variety of customer-specified critical factors,” Owen explained. “Users determine the threshold for temperature, humidity, time in transit, impacts, shelf life and location; the dashboard displays the readings in real-time, highlighting any pallet that deviates from their settings.”