Who we are

Kerry Die is a team of committed industry processionals with a combined experience in pelletting of over 100 years. The team is lead by Liam O’Connor and his son Hugh.

Liam O’Connor started Kerry Die in 1979 and built it into a leading die manufacturing business mainly for the animal feed sector which at its peak employed over 40 people at the Co. Kerry facility. In 2000, Liam decided to reposition the business and focus entirely on developing and manufacturing a next generation Integrated Wood Pellet System. This was to address the growing demand for wood pellet production globally. Prior to Kerry Die, Liam worked first in the 5th generation family animal feed milling business in Ireland. Then Liam trained in Manchester as an engineer in feed and flour milling. Thereafter Liam worked for Simon Engineering in the UK and Germany before returning to Ireland to setup an animal feed milling engineering business.

Hugh O’Connor has been helping Kerry Die grow for the last 15 years. Hugh has been the driving force in developing Kerry Die after sales services and die refurbishment activities in Sweden, which he started in 2006. Hugh has also been instrumental in designing the electrical systems for Integrated Wood Pellet System. Hugh graduated from the University of Limerick with an engineering degree and thereafter worked in the US, Holland and Sweden. He was also a project engineer for Andritz (UMT) building the world’s largest die manufacturing plant.

James L. Brown has been working with Liam and Hugh since 2008 to bring to the market the Integrated Wood Pellet System. Prior to working with Kerry Die, James helped establish a next generation wind turbine assembly plant and worked on financing several small-scale renewable energy projects. From 2001 to 2006, James was a partner in the supply-chain focused venture capital firm LogiSpring. Before then, James was the managing director of Westerlund Asia, the Chinese subsidiary of the Antwerp based forest products stevedoring, warehousing and distribution company, Westerlund. James has an MSc from the London School of Economics and a BA from the University of Miami.

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