Eric Levin is poised to ink another chapter in his promo products career.

The industry veteran has earned promotion to the newly created role of executive vice president of hard goods strategy and growth at Top 40 supplier alphabroder (asi/34063), the second largest supplier in the promotional products industry.

“Eric is our hard goods business expert and is well-positioned to bring immediate value to our hard goods customers,” said Chief Operating Officer Mark Lawrence.

In his new role, Levin will focus on driving growth through both organic and acquisitive strategies for alphabroder’s hard goods business.

“I am excited to take on this expanded role,” said Levin, who was previously executive vice president of hard goods/decoration. “I’m looking forward to applying my industry knowledge to help further develop alphabroder’s commitment in the hard goods world.”

Levin has long worked in the hard goods business on the supplier side of the promo industry. He was the founder and CEO of former supplier Jetline.

In 2016, Prime Line – a Top 40 supplier at the time – acquired Jetline in what was a notable deal between two respected hard good firms. Levin became an executive vice president at Prime Line – a role he served in until alphabroder acquired Prime Line in late 2017 in what was a blockbuster acquisition. The deal turned alphabroder from a large supplier offering apparel into one that provides both wearables and hard goods. Levin joined alphabroder as part of the acquisition.

In April 2023, alphabroder centralized all its apparel and hard good offerings on one tech-enhanced website, and unified its company identity under a single banner as part of what it has termed its “One-Stop Solution.”

Levin’s newly created role “is an investment in alphabroder’s hard good business, aligning with its recent implementation and success of the One-Stop Solution,” the company said.

In another leadership move at alphabroder, Joe Blackburn has joined the company as vice president of decoration operations. He’ll lead all decoration teams and report to Lawrence.

Blackburn was most recently with building materials company Owens Corning. In his nearly five years there, Blackburn served as a plant manager and a leader of the operations, engineering and continuous improvement teams. “Prior to that, Joe spent over 20 years at Schneider Electric in manufacturing, process improvement and engineering management positions,” alphabroder noted.

Based on reported 2021 North American promotional products revenue of $1.7 billion, alphabroder ranked second on Counselor’s most recent list of the largest distributors in the industry. The new rankings, based on 2022 performance, are due out in July.