Image courtesy of Percival's website

A Perry business has a new person at the helm.

After 49 years, Gary Wheelock retired from Percival Scientific and the company named Jake Oakland as the new CEO. Percival manufactures climate-controlled chambers for scientific research. Oakland has 16 years of experience with management and engineering at John Deere. He managed over 500 employees throughout his tenure in areas of operations and manufacturing engineering. Oakland has an extensive background with assembly manufacturing engineering, production supervisors project manager, manufacturing engineering supervisor/manager and a business unit manager.

Wheelock has been a part of the company’s relocation in 2000 from Boone to Perry, expanded their product line to more than 100 chamber models, increased its global market reach to customers in 89 countries, doubled its floor space and gained more than 10 percent of staff with a $3.5 million expansion. 

Wheelock says he is excited for Oakland taking over the company as the CEO and looks forward to the direction he will lead Percival.