SMI Welcomes Five New Board Members

Elgin, Ill. – May 30, 2025 – The Spring Manufacturers Institute (SMI) has announced the addition of five new members to its Board of Directors. Each of these individuals will serve a three-year term. The board meets four times a year to review the business of the association.

The new board members are Julie Arenz of R&L Spring and Medicoil, Chris Kozka of MW Components, Timo Roeger of Kern-Liebers USA, Sanjeev Rivera of Lee Spring and Jason Sicotte of Associated Spring.

“Adding five new board members and diversifying the composition of our board is a great testament to SMI’s executive committee and staff,” said SMI President Don Jacobson III. “It is very exciting to see where we are as an association and the direction we are headed.”

Arenz, Rivera and Roeger are actively involved in SMI’s Emerging Leaders group.

Arenz is a recent third-generation family business owner of R&L Spring and Medicoil in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. She has been working in the company for more than eight years now and is passionate about continuing her family’s legacy of making high-quality, precision springs, coils and formed wire products. She values her partnerships with other communities and looks forward to becoming more involved with SMI. Away from the office, Arenz is a mother to two young boys, so spending quality family time and being active outdoors with them is a top priority.

As a product manager at MW Components, Kozka utilizes his diverse background in customer service, engineering, estimating and quality control to help clients achieve significant process improvements. His expertise includes waste reduction strategies and optimization techniques. Certified in Six Sigma and fluent in Polish, he is actively engaged in the manufacturing community, currently serving as president of the Chicago Association of Spring Manufacturers, Inc. (CASMI). Outside of work, Kozka cherishes spending quality time golfing and enjoying long walks with his twin daughters.

Rivera is the president of Lee Spring, a leading manufacturer of stock and custom springs, wireforms, fourslide parts and stampings. Headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, Lee Spring serves a diverse range of industries, including aerospace, medical, robotics and electronics, offering more than 25,000 stock spring products and extensive custom capabilities. In addition to spring manufacturing, Rivera also has experience in consumer products and semiconductor manufacturing, bringing a broad industry perspective to his leadership. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business.

Since 2023, Roeger has been the managing director of the division of Smart Springs & Smart Parts for Kern-Liebers USA. In that role, he leads the U.S. operations of the division, with overall responsibility for strategic development, financial performance, and operational excellence. From 2014 to 2023, Roeger served as the head of product development and planning for the Smart Springs division at Kern-Liebers in Germany. He earned an MBA from IUBH Internationale Hochschule in Germany in 2020, to go along with a master of science in engineering and a bachelor of engineering degrees from Hochschule in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Sicotte has more than 30 years of experience in the spring industry. He currently serves in the role of director of global engineering for Associated Spring. During his career, Sicotte has gained valuable experience analyzing failures, designing new products and working closely with wire and steel mills on process improvements. Sicotte holds several patents and was a guest speaker at SMI’s Educational Symposium at SpringWorld 2024 on “Shot Peen Innovation.” Sicotte has also written several articles for Springs.

The SMI Board of Directors consists of 18 members from 17 different spring manufacturers in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, along with two associate board members representing companies that supply products to the spring industry.

For more information about SMI, visit www.smihq.org.

About Spring Manufacturers Institute

Founded in 1933, the Spring Manufacturers Institute (SMI) is an association of companies that manufacture springs and their associate suppliers. The members of SMI work together to meet the key issues of the industry worldwide: quality, materials, technology and government regulations. SMI provides many services, including a quarterly magazine, Springs, a variety of technical publications, spring design software, industry data, seminars, meetings, safety and regulatory compliance and technical assistance. For more information on SMI, visit: www.smihq.org.