IDEA’s new executive director didn’t begin his career on the ground level in industry. He started below ground.

Dan Iacconi grew up about 50 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, Pa., and for 12 years worked 500 feet underground for Gateway Coal Company in Washington, Pa.

“I graduated from high school and went straight into the coal mine in 1975,” Iacconi said.

While he worked in the mine, he also continued his education and received his Residential and Industrial Electrical Wiring Certification in 1979 from Fayette Institute of Technology in Uniontown, Pa. After he became an A.C. electrician, he enrolled in 1982 at California University of Pennsylvania, in California, Pa., where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in manufacturing technology in 1987 and a Master of Science degree in business administration in 1988.

In 1987, he was laid off from the coal mine and took a job working as a court constable, or “Bull on ‘Night Court’” as Iacconi describes it, for a year with Judge Conrad B. Capuzzi at Fayette County Courthouse in Uniontown, Pa.

After he finished graduate school, he accepted a position with General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1989, as a numerical control engineer and worked with APT and CAD/CAM systems, programming all the parts for fuselages for F-16 fighter jets.

His father became ill in 1990 and he wanted to move back closer to home, so he took a job as a manufacturing and industrial engineer with Rockwell International’s graphics division, which manufactured, among other things, printing presses for newspapers. In 1992, he became a project coordinator for Rockwell in Reading, Pa.

Iacconi arrived in Glasgow in April of 1993 when he was hired as the assistant production superintendent and senior industrial engineer for SKF USA, Inc. Later that year, he was promoted to production superintendent of the TRB Division.

In 1995, he became plant manager of the hub division of SKF in Glasgow with 250 employees. He managed a new manufacturing/project start-up that represented 50 percent of plant sales volume. During this time, productivity was improved by 20 percent by revising the manufacturing process, according to Iacconi.

He took over as vice president of operations for Casting Technology Company, in Franklin, Ind., in 1996. For that year, he chose to keep his residence in Glasgow, commuting the three hours home each weekend.

Iacconi was named vice president and general manager HBU USA of SKF Automotive Division, in Aiken, S.C., in 1997. He made the decision in 2000 when he was asked by the company to relocate to its “up and coming” plant in Greenville, S.C., to decline the opportunity and stay in Glasgow.

He said he’s worked all over the country, in Texas, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Indiana, and Glasgow is where he wants to be.

“I chose this to be my home,” he said. “That’s how comfortable I am here.”

J.L. French Corporation hired Iacconi in June of 2000 as general manager for both the die cast and machining facilities in Glasgow. He was responsible for the direction and supervision for the two facilities with a total work force of 500 employees and total sales of $150 million.

Now that he has been named executive director of the Glasgow-Barren County Industrial Development and Economic Authority and with his tenure beginning officially on Jan. 2, Iacconi said he will continue to work with J.L. French for several months to help them with the successful launch of a new program.