Our management team leads the industry

We are focused on accelerating the growth of our operating companies by helping them access new markets and develop solutions in high growth sectors. Our management team has a proven track record of delivering business impact across industry sectors and geographic markets.

Chris O'Connor

President and Chief Executive Officer

Chris is the global leader of the Humanetics Group and is one the industry's recognized experts on vehicle and occupant safety. He is a retired Colonel in the US Army Reserves and a board member of several fast growth engineering businesses. He can often be found calculating velocity and winds speeds on the golf course, or tuning the torque on one of his engines.

James Habel, CPA, CTP

Chief Financial Officer

James manages all of the Global Finance, IT, and Legal functions at the Humanetics Group helping ensure long term investments are in place to drive results. He has led global Finance activities including significant M&A at Ford, Visteon, ZF, and the PKC Group. At home James is chief entertainment officer for his family with regular movies, swimming and fishing events. 

Jeff Lewis

Chief Commercial Officer

Jeff leads the commercial and sales teams across the Humanetics Group. An engineer by training he has worked at the cutting edge of automotive innovation with Chrysler, Jaguar Land Rover and AVL. Originally from Northern Ireland, he studied in Edinburgh, has worked and travelled extensively throughout Europe, Asia and now lives in Detroit, USA.  Jeff dedicates his spare time to his family and enjoys reading, cooking and tending to the garden.

Barney Loehnis

Chief Marketing Officer

Barney leads the marketing growth programs, strategic communications, and customer experience design. He has led marketing and digital transformations in Europe, Asia and the USA in B2B, B2C and agency sectors, for clients like IBM, VW, Huawei, Qualcomm and Mercer Consulting. Barney is a British and American citizen, a bad runner and avid cook.

Mike Van Horn

Chief Operating Officer

Mike is in charge of managing the operations, manufacturing and delivery of Humanetics' test devices to our clients. He has extensive automotive and manufacturing experience in quality, manufacturing and R&D teams. When not operating our global business he decompresses with his family and friends hunting, fishing and boating.

Janis Major

Head of Human Resources

Janis leads the Human Resource function for the Humanetics Group and represents the needs of our 800 employees across 13 markets. Her experience working with both mature and startup companies helps to shape her guidance for all aspects of the human resource function. The best part of her day is to spend time with family and finding ways to give back to the community.

Bryan Brown

Head of Corporate Development

Bryan leads the corporate development for Humanetics identifying potential partnerships and acquisitions and managing their integration into the Humanetics Group. Coming from the investment banking world, he is a rare numbers person with strategic vision and a creative side. He likes nothing more than to spend his time in northern Michigan with his family and logging the miles on his bike.

Operating company leadership

Mike Osborne

CEO, OpTek Systems

Mike is the founder and CEO of OpTek  and continues to lead business development and operations in EU, US and Asia. He has physics degrees from Oxford University and Imperial College, and has been one of the leading pioneers to harness the precision manufacturing capabilities of lasers. His passions are swimming and music, but not at the same time.

Chris Emslie

CEO, Fibercore

Chris is the founder and CEO of Fibercore remains deeply involved in technical innovation, manufacturing and business development. As one of the industry's acknowledged leaders, he is credited as co-inventor of the manufacturing technique used to produce the all-silica, dual-clad, rare-earth doped fiber that has probably been used in more of the world’s high power fiber amplifiers than any other design. He is a doting father and loves to spend time in the countryside.

George Low

Managing Director, HITEC Sensor Developments

George is the Managing Director responsible for both the United States and Sri Lankan business entities. He has spent the majority of his career within the Group and has developed relationships across many industries to deliver unique customer solutions for our clients. When he's not instrumenting the largest turbines in the world with strain gauge sensors, in the twilight hours George can be found in his shop restoring one of his vintage trucks.