Armand Massary: Leadership Wooster Alumni Award
ArtiFlex congratulates one of its own earning the prestigious Leadership Wooster Alumni Award.
He first learned what it meant to take the lead when he completed the Wooster Area Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Wooster program in 2003 while working at LuK. This year, the chamber will honor the current general manager of Artiflex with its annual Leadership Wooster Alumni Award at its dinner and awards banquet on Thursday.
“I was honored and have a lot of gratitude and thankfulness,” Massary said. “It’s a great program and the number of students or leaders who have gone through it, I was very honored. It gave me a thorough understanding of the city, how things work.”
Massary, who has spent his career in the automotive and capital equipment industry, had been working in the Warren/Youngstown area for years, but returned to Wooster in 2017 to work at Artiflex.
Through the Leadership Wooster program, he learned how the local government, economic and social organizations work and interact. It also provided him with a better understanding of the importance of local nonprofit organizations.
Massary is putting that knowledge to work both in his job and in his new position as a chamber board member. He admires the chamber’s willingness to listen to any ideas to improve the business community.
“Everything the chamber does is first class,” he said. “When they decide to take something on, they do it well.”
Justin Starlin, the chamber president, has every confidence Leadership Wooster gave Massary the tools to take on a leadership role in the community.
“Throughout his career, I believe, he always eyed the area for an opportunity to assume a leadership role in the Wooster business community,” he said.
His good friend Don Noble II added: “Armand has grown as a leader in his industry and in the community during his career. It has been my pleasure to watch him advance and make a difference in the areas he touches.”
Outside of the business arena, Massary has used his leadership skills coaching youth sports for his three now-grown children. He serves on the finance committee at Grace Church and for the last three years helped his wife Lisa run Toyrifix in Smithville.
“For me, it’s exciting to be local again,” Massary said. “I haven’t been local since the early 2000s when I worked at Schaeffler. So for me to be local and start getting involved again is fun. Wooster has always been a place where I slept and ate. Now that I’m local, I’m able to get more involved.
“The city itself, what the mayor has done and his team and the awards they’ve won, the education system, everything, it’s an amazing community and something I’m proud to be a member,” he added.