Manufacturing Council Members Charter Subcommittees Recommendations Meetings

Fred P. Keller
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Cascade Engineering

Fred P. Keller is chairman, CEO and founder of Cascade Engineering, a global provider of plastic solutions to the automotive, office furniture, and material handling markets. An engineer by training, Keller began his career with Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. After spending six years as a metallurgist, he founded Cascade Engineering in 1973. Early on, Cascade Engineering was a small injection molding company, utilizing just two machines, a single facility and six employees. Today, Cascade Engineering operates over 104 machines, employs over 1,200 people in 10 manufacturing facilities.

Keller has built Cascade Engineering to reflect his beliefs that businesses should be sustainable, and should be focused on achieving worthy goals. His sustainable business model places equal importance on three key types of capital; social, ecological and financial. By placing an enormous value on his employees and the impact each individual can have, Keller has built Cascade Engineering into an organization that is truly ‘shaping ideas in plastics’ and benefiting West Michigan through environmental and community programs.

Keller has always focused on innovation; with products, business practices and corporate culture. His sustainable business model, community and environmental programs have earned him wide spread recognition. He’s earned numerous awards, including Chrysler’s Technology Role Model, the Hugh Michael Beahan Foundation’s “Faith in Humanity” Award for 2004, the White House’s Ron Brown Award for Corporate Leadership, and Goodwill’s Employer of the Year.

Keller also participates in other local and national businesses as a director of Meijer, the chairman of the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, the chairman of the School to Career Progressions Board and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. His work and programs have been featured in numerous trade and business publications, and he currently teaches a course on sustainable business at Cornell University. Keller is a Grand Rapids native who graduated with a bachelor of science in material science and engineering from Cornell in 1966, and a masters of science in business management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1971.