Collaboration, Creativity, and Intelligent Design

Despite our varying backgrounds and experiences, there’s one idea that unites the KDI team: we love to solve tough problems. Our team of engineering and manufacturing professionals work together to find innovative solutions to any problem. Collectively, our engineering team has 50+ years of experience in precision manufacturing.

About KDI: A Unique History

KDI, aka. Kluge Design Inc. (pronounced KLOO-GEE) was founded in 1982 by two engineers, Doug Kluge and Glenn Campbell. Their focus was designing and building custom automation equipment.

One of KDI’s early customers was a local consumer products manufacturer. The relationship with this customer expanded and KDI helped design and develop a revolutionary new consumer product for them. This led to the customer asking if KDI would be willing to set up and operate a production line for the product. Within a year of establishing Kluge Design Inc., the company’s focus shifted to contract manufacturing.

In 1994 KDI started building medical devices and since that time have focused on the medical device industry. Today over 65% of the products that KDI builds are medical or healthcare related.

Over the years KDI has added CNC vertical milling and turning centers, laser marking, wire harness and cable assembly/test and other capabilities to support customer’s needs. ISO 13485 registration was received in 2002. Additionally, KDI is registered with the FDA as a contract manufacturer for finished devices.

Today the company is privately owned by Glenn Campbell, Steve McKeown and Ernie Pavlisich and enjoys a broad and diverse customer base.  We are known for solving challenging design, automation and manufacturing problems and for our ability to efficiently build complex, electrical/ mechanical, high mix low volume products.

Our team is always excited to learn about new projects. Contact us today to get the conversation started.

Vitaliy Epshteyn

CEO

Vitaliy Epshteyn joined KDI as the CEO in 2024. Vitaliy brings 25+ years of experience in the Medical Device industry at both finished device OEMs as well as contract manufacturers. Prior to KDI, Vitaliy held several key executive management positions leading Operations, Product Development, Project Management, and Quality/Regulatory functions at St Jude Medical (now Abbott), TE Connectivity, and Nuwellis. Vitaliy has a passion for building strong teams and processes in support of rapid medical device product commercialization. Vitaliy is excited to lead KDI Manufacturing through its next phase of growth.

Steve McKeown

President

Steve joined KDI in 1988 as Quality Manager and has advanced through the operations side of the company to the current position of President. Prior to KDI, Steve worked at Medtronic Cardiac Pacing in supplier quality engineering.  Before that he held quality related positions in manufacturing at Sperry/ Unisys building commercial main frame computers and shipboard computers for the United States Navy. Connect with Steve on Linkedin >

Glenn Campbell

Founder, Director of Engineering

Glenn has been designing products, equipment and automation controls since he was 18 years old.  He has 40 years of engineering experience with pneumatics, hydraulics, PLC controls and mechanical & electrical engineering. With more than 20 patents and copyrights issued to him (and our customers), he has designed cutting edge DNA purification systems, blood platelet separation centrifuges and thin film sputtering equipment – to name a few technologies.

Erik Kariniemi

Quality Manager

Erik joined KDI as the Quality Manager in 2023. He has 18 years of experience in Quality, about half of which is in Medical Device contract manufacturing serving OEM customers, and the other half in the Pharmaceutical Industry. Erik is passionate about Quality, and a strong believer in building robust Quality Systems that protect customers and their patients, and drive continuous improvement at KDI. Erik leads KDI efforts in maintaining ISO 13485 certification and FDA registration.

The Evolution of a Logo