AAON Fortifies Its Board for a New Era of Strategic Growth

TULSA, Okla. – July 30, 2026

In a move that speaks volumes about its future ambitions, AAON, Inc. has announced a strategic expansion of its Board of Directors, appointing two seasoned industry veterans, Robert L. Buttermore III and Patrick J. Jermain, as independent directors. While corporate board changes are routine, this one is different. It’s less about simple succession and more about a calculated fortification of leadership, aligning the company’s governance directly with its aggressive push into high-growth commercial HVAC and mission-critical cooling markets.

The appointments, effective July 28, 2026, increase the board's size from nine to eleven members and come at a pivotal moment for the Tulsa-based manufacturer. As stated by Independent Chairman of the Board, A.H. "Chip" McElroy II, "AAON has entered a period where the opportunities in front of us are larger than at any point in our history." This sentiment was echoed by President and CEO Matt Tobolski, who emphasized the intentional evolution of the board to support the company's expanding scale and leadership position. This isn't just filling seats; it's a strategic acquisition of human capital.

A Board Built for Scale and Specialization

AAON's decision to expand its board is a direct response to its own explosive growth. The company ended 2025 with a staggering consolidated backlog of $1.83 billion, a 111% increase year-over-year. A significant portion of this surge came from its BASX brand, which specializes in data center liquid cooling solutions and saw its backlog skyrocket by over 141%. Managing this level of demand while simultaneously investing heavily in future capacity—to the tune of $204.9 million in capital expenditures in 2025—requires a specific and sophisticated skill set at the highest level of oversight.

This move exemplifies a modern approach to corporate governance, where board refreshment is driven by a skills-based assessment rather than a simple calendar-based rotation. AAON's Governance Committee, tasked with annually reviewing the board's composition, has clearly identified the need for deeper expertise in global operations and complex financial strategy. By adding Buttermore to the Compensation Committee and Jermain to the Audit Committee, the company is embedding this new expertise directly into its core oversight functions, ensuring that its strategic execution is matched by rigorous governance.

Decoding the New Directors' Expertise

Analyzing the professional backgrounds of the new appointees provides a clear roadmap of AAON's strategic priorities. These are not generalist appointments; they are specialists chosen for a specific mission.

Robert L. Buttermore III brings a wealth of experience from his role as Senior Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer at Rockwell Automation, a titan of industrial automation. His purview there includes global manufacturing, sourcing, logistics, and customer care. This is precisely the kind of experience a company like AAON needs as it scales production of its highly configurable equipment across an increasingly complex global landscape. More pointedly, Buttermore previously led Rockwell's Power Control business and oversaw strategic expansions supporting customers in the industrial, semiconductor, HVAC, and, critically, data center sectors. His direct experience with the demands and intricacies of the data center market—a primary engine of AAON's recent growth—is an invaluable asset that cannot be overstated. His insights will be crucial for optimizing a supply chain straining to meet unprecedented demand.

Patrick J. Jermain offers a complementary skill set honed during his twelve-year tenure as Executive Vice President and CFO of Plexus Corporation, a global manufacturing services company. He guided Plexus through its own period of significant growth, portfolio transformation, and complex capital allocation decisions. For a company like AAON, which is investing hundreds of millions in capacity expansion, Jermain’s experience in financial strategy, M&A evaluation, and long-term value creation is paramount. His background in advising a board on risk management and investor relations within a public manufacturing context provides the financial discipline necessary to steer the ship through the turbulent waters of rapid expansion. His placement on the Audit Committee signals a commitment to robust financial oversight as the company's operational and financial complexity grows.

Navigating a Landscape of Opportunity and Competition

The strategic timing of these appointments is underscored by powerful secular trends shaping the HVAC and data center industries. The commercial HVAC market is being redefined by a global push for decarbonization and energy efficiency. Stricter regulations and a heightened post-pandemic focus on indoor air quality are creating sustained demand for the kind of advanced, high-performance systems that are AAON's specialty. The company's recent success in the Department of Energy's Commercial Building HVAC Technology Challenge with its dual-fuel technology highlights its innovation in this space.

Simultaneously, the mission-critical cooling market is experiencing exponential growth, fueled by the proliferation of cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence. Modern data centers, packed with high-density servers, generate immense heat loads, making advanced cooling solutions not just a matter of efficiency but of operational necessity. This has triggered a shift toward more sophisticated technologies, particularly direct-to-chip and immersion liquid cooling—the very solutions driving the growth of AAON's BASX brand. In this highly competitive landscape, which includes giants like Vertiv and Schneider Electric, specialized engineering and supply chain agility are key differentiators.

By bringing on Buttermore and Jermain, AAON is arming itself with the leadership needed to navigate these converging trends. Buttermore’s supply chain mastery is essential for delivering complex cooling solutions on time, while Jermain’s financial acumen is critical for funding the necessary innovation and expansion to stay ahead of the competition. The appointments are a clear signal that AAON is not just participating in these markets; it is positioning itself to lead them. The company’s recent performance, including record Q1 2026 sales and a raised full-year guidance, provides a powerful platform from which to launch this next ambitious chapter.