Aerospace exec to take the reins at CBIA
The Connecticut Business & Industry Association chose an aerospace manufacturing executive as its next CEO.
Chris DiPentima will replace Joe Brennan, who has led the Hartford-based entity since 2014, on August 3. DiPentima is the division president of Leggett & Platt Aerospace, the corporate parent of Pegasus Manufacturing in Middletown, which had 125 employees at last report.
DiPentima is a past board chair of CBIA.
“I have always respected the organization — I have great admiration for them,” DiPentima said. “Not just voicing it — offering solutions as well is really important to me. I’ve been on some other organizations where maybe they are a voice, but there’s no substance behind it . ... I looked at my background and said, ‘You know, maybe I have a unique enough background to make a difference.’”
After working early in his career as a business attorney, DiPentima became general counsel at Pegasus, which was founded in 1989 by his father Vincent. He eventually became owner and president, and in 2016 struck a deal to sell Pegasus to Leggett & Platt, which in addition to aerospace components sells bedding and automotive products.
Pegasus makes curved tubing and ducts for jet engines and other systems, with customers including the GE Aviation division of General Electric; General Dynamics and its Electric Boat submarine plant in Groton; and Aerojet Rocketdyne, at one time the rocket division of United Technologies, which merged this spring with Raytheon Technologies.
Brennan likewise started his career as an attorney. He has spent more than three decades with CBIA, and was elevated to CEO six years ago after the retirement of
John Rathgeber. With the long-term effect of the coronavirus pandemic still an open question, Brennan said the state has nevertheless come a long way since the middle part of the decade, when General Electric elected to move its headquarters from Fairfield to Boston, and Aetna eyed New York City before selling to CVS Health and staying put in Hartford.
“The world almost seemed to be crashing down,” Brennan said. “I wrote an open letter to [former] Gov. Malloy ... that we need to get together soon and figure out how we are going to deal with this. So we really raised our voices at that point — maybe more forcefully than we had before — about how we couldn’t be going on like were were.”
For the fiscal year ending in June 2017, CBIA’s nonprofit operations generated revenue of $7.2 million, a nearly 20 percent increase from fiscal 2016, with net assets totaling $12.4 million. Brennan’s CBIA pay was $340,000 in fiscal 2017, the most recent year for which CBIA’s annual IRS disclosure is available online, not including additional compensation from affiliates.
CBIA had more than 6,000 member companies that year. The organization lobbies in Hartford on regulations and laws affecting business; its services including seminars on workforce development, human resources and other topics. CBIA charges annual dues ranging from $275 to $825 for members with payrolls under $1 million, and an extra $350 for every additional $1 million in payroll after that on a prorated scale.
A separate entity called CBIA Health Connections is operated on a for-profit basis brokering varying lines of insurance to more than 3,000 companies statewide, including health insurance underwritten by ConnectiCare.
DiPentima’s hire comes months after the disbandment of the Business Council of Fairfield County, which had a far smaller membership base, but with major corporate names peppering its board was otherwise a prominent voice on opportunities and challenges for Connecticut businesses.
Jennifer DelMonico, a managing partner in the New Haven office of Murtha Cullina, chairs CBIA’s board of directors. The CBIA board’s executive committee includes Jeff Hubbard of Liberty Bank; Paul Kelley of Alinabal in Milford; David Lewis of OperationsInc in Norwalk; Matthew McSpedon in JPMorgan Chase’s Shelton office; and John Strahley of IsoPlexis in Branford.