John Fullem is President and Owner of Recht Associates. John is responsible for the company’s strategic direction, sales management and overall operations. He continues his passion of technical sales and account management by directly supporting several of the firm’s key customers. John earned his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Vermont with emphasis in materials science. He began his career at Texas Instruments as a design engineer and later technical marketing positions. Before joining Recht Associates in 1997, John held various field application engineering and sales management positions with several global leading electronics manufacturers. In 2001, John became Vice President of Sales and Partner with Recht Associates, leading the sales team with data analytics and a CRM focus. By 2014, John became President with the successful transition of the firm’s senior partner.

John’s passion for sports and outdoor activities stems from growing up in New England and he dedicated many years to coaching East Bay Area youth sports programs. His greatest enjoyment is skiing the mountains around Lake Tahoe and the Rockies with his wife and 2 sons.

Jennifer began her career at an electronic components distributor, starting as a file clerk, and has successfully worked across various roles gaining 35+ years’ experience in the electronics industry. Jennifer is quite capable at multi-tasking, very systems oriented and utilizes many platforms to provide immediate response to customers, distributor sales teams and manufacturer contacts. She is dedicated and adept at creative ways to solving problems and at the same time working side by side with the entire team to provide top level service. Jennifer’s dedication was acknowledged in 2018 when she was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award in Customer Service Enhancement from an industry leading manufacturer.

Her passion is advocating for the education of children. Jennifer has successfully implemented new programs, events and support pieces for both her local elementary school and middle school, working as PTA President and Chairman of Site Council over 10 years. Successfully raising thousands of dollars, helping teachers and administration better provide supplies and activities for students. Jennifer has lived in the Bay Area most of her life, with her husband and 2 children, enjoys working out, spending time at the beach and going to concerts. Jennifer is always looking for ways to volunteer in her community and truly enjoys helping out those in need.

Kelly Chao is Data Analyst at Recht Associates. Her role at Recht is to analyze the Recht Associates Principal and Customer reported data and reconcile to Sales. Kelly has been with Recht Associates since 2001. Kelly’s support to Recht Sales Engineers and Inside Sales is invaluable in processing the immense data reported from all principal manufacturer business data channels and platforms. Through this deep analysis and reviewed through the Recht sales teams, both market and product trends can be identified, reviewed and actioned upon for better support to Recht sales team. Kelly has great skill to analyze sales performance and that key information is shared with Recht Associates manufacturer principals and together synergy is developed for excellent throughput of information and shared data, further fostering and solidifying manufacturer principal relationships.

Born and raised in Taipei Taiwan, Kelly is fluent in Mandarin, enjoying yoga and Zumba as well as some gardening on weekends. Now with an empty nest, Kelly loves to travel and explore!

Celeste Gionet-Hawker is an Inside Sales Representative at Recht Associates. Celeste’s role is to support the Field Sales Team, Principal and Distribution partners as well as customers including OEMs and Contract Manufacturers. Celeste is a 30+ year veteran of the Northern California Component Representation industry — even going to the extreme by sourcing her husband from a favorite principal. She is highly focused on customer service and particularly enjoys solving problems for OEMs and Distribution partners. Celeste is Recht’s Amphenol line champion. Working with people is a special joy to Celeste. She likes being creative and enjoys a challenge. Nothing pleases her more than a satisfied customer.

Celeste enjoys live theater and music and looks forward every season to the Oscar Best Film showcase. She likes to name her cats after famous people and among her clowder is Boutros Boutros Ghali and William Thomson, Lord Kelvin of Largs. She would have a farm if her husband let her. Her ambition is to learn to play the drums but is waiting until her husband is deaf. If that doesn’t work out, she would love to run a Donkey Sanctuary with her granddaughter Thea.

Phil Mandelstamm is a Field Sales Engineer at Recht Associates. Phil will have focus at Recht Associates to bring the best technology our principal manufacturers have to offer, to both our existing and prospective customers.  Phil has over 12 years of electronic component sales experience with his career starting in distribution. During his years in distribution, he held various roles starting as an Account Development Rep, then into the role of Strategic Account Management and finally moving into Sales Management before making a move to Recht Associates. Phil strives to solve complex customer problems by being a trusted advisor through the sale process. Customers have confidence that Phil can guide them to the right technological solution.

As a native of Northern California, Phil enjoys traveling, hiking and any mountain sports. He is also an avid enthusiast when it comes to BBQ and Beer. Most importantly Phil loves coaching his three kids in soccer and baseball.

Steve Mendez is a Field Sales Engineer at Recht Associates. Steve’s role at Recht Associates is to provide product technology benefits direct to customers in Northern California, with the principal manufactures represented. Steve thrives on customer engagement and satisfaction. As a native to the Bay Area, Steve has 23 years of electronic component sales with various growing roles. Starting his career in Northern California, Steve also spent nearly 10 years of his career serving the Southern California market before heading back to his roots, in support of Bay Area customers. He has held various roles starting in Customer Service, Inside Sales, Outside Sales, Sales Management, and now Sales Engineering. Understanding all facets of customer satisfaction, customers have the upmost confidence in Steve’s abilities to understand their challenges and technology interests. Steve takes great pride to navigate them smoothly through the entire sales process.

Steve lives an active lifestyle and enjoys lifting weights 6 days a week along with trail running. Other hobbies include a passion for soccer and his green thumb for gardening.

Joel Merten is a Field Sales Engineer at Recht Associates aiming to provide his customers with the latest technological advantages his suppliers offer. Over the last 35 years Joel has represented many of the leading passive and electromechanical component manufacturers in the electronics market. First engaging customers for 15+ years thru local distribution in San Jose California then moving on to his current role as Sales Engineer at Recht Associates, a leading manufacturers representative in the Bay Area. In distribution Joel not only aided customers with technical sales assistance, but also guided them to solutions from the field application position for 5+ years. He has since enjoyed his role at Recht for 20 years aiding customers in their product design efforts thru excellent product knowledge and customer service.

Besides career success, Joel has succeeded playing local team sports with several league championships over the years on basketball and softball teams. Always enjoying hands on projects around the home, he surprisingly finds even more satisfaction attempting to stay in shape as an avid road biker and snow skier. And of course hustling to satisfy customer needs.

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Phil Papenfuss is a Field Sales Engineer at Recht Associates. Phil has worked in Silicon Valley over 25 years in Sales, Marketing and FAE roles. Phil has experience with ASICs, memory devices, cryptography, power, passives and electro-mechanical. This diverse background and technical knowledge helps Phil to identify new opportunities and new potential customers. Phil is originally from Minnesota and has a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Marquette University. When he’s not working, you may find Phil watching the San Jose Sharks, paddle boarding, skiing or hiking with his wife and kids and their Brittany Spaniel, Dakota.

Kim Parsons is a Sales Engineer at Recht Associates. Kim engages directly with OEMs, Engineering Design Services and Distribution Partners. She focuses on her customers designs through the sharing of new and existing technologies available from the Recht Associates product offering. Kim has worked in electronic component sales her entire career spanning career roles such as Inside Sales, Product Management, Distribution Manager and Sales Engineer. At Recht Associates Kim has won two manufacturer principal awards, a 2015 Design Win Champion and 2018 Outstanding Sales Increase.

Her favorite part of her job is to sit down with an engineering team to learn about their project. She enjoys being involved with new technologies and helping her customers find the right component fit for their designs. Kim has said many times “I like my customers and I like doing what I do.” Kim has always enjoyed understanding how mechanical things work. Kim owned her first car at the age of 16. When it came time for maintenance, she went to the local auto parts store to find out how to do the work herself. She changed the oil on a regular basis and once even rebuilt the 4-barrel Rochester Quadra jet carburetor. Kim has always been and still is a DIY kind of person. A passioned “foodie” she will develop new recipes and enjoys planning and cooking meals for family and friends. She has hosted a family dinner just about every Sunday at her home for over 20 years.

Kim loves living in the countryside with her husband, 2 dogs, 3 cats, 2 chickens and various wildlife. She enjoys gardening with whatever leftovers the deer don’t eat.

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Kristen Perryman is an Inside Sales Representative at Recht Associates. Kristen has worked with the Recht Associates team for 20 years and has 36 years of progressive customer service and support experience. Kristen consistently provides best in class service and support to all of her valued customers, supporting a full spectrum of customer requirements from researching product specifications, through providing real-time delivery confirmation. Kristen is a quick study and is dedicated to bridging gaps and removing roadblocks to ensure complete customer satisfaction at all times. As a result of Kristen’s consistent masterful performance, she has received the Excellence in Manufacturing Representative Award as well as numerous Customer Service Enhancement Awards during her tenure at Recht Associates.

Kristen’s hobbies include spoiling her two adorable Australian Shepherds, hiking, biking, card and board games, off-road adventures in her jeep with the top and doors off, and window-shopping classic muscle cars. Kristen’s love for the outdoors stems from the years she lived in Montana, where her family still resides.

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Renee Ruzsa is the Distribution Sales Manager at Recht Associates. Renee’s role is to foster relationships with Recht Associates distribution partners and bring represented manufacturers products to the forefront of distribution sales teams. Renee provides effective communication between the distribution channel and the Recht Associates Sales Engineer field team. A committed sales professional, Renee has over 25 years of experience in the electronic component industry. Her excellent reputation as an ethical, and creative distributor/customer/supplier centered professional has established strong relationships with her distributors through rapport and above all, trust.

Renee ensures sales teams and suppliers are engaged with mutual strategies and execution. Renee is an active member of “Women in Electronics” and in 2019 was awarded Outstanding Distribution Sales Manager from one of Recht Associates top tier manufacturers. She believes that continued success comes from knowledge, hard work and interpersonal relationships.

Renee is a native of San Jose and a graduate of SJSU. Outside of work, you can find Renee spending time with her 3 daughters and family. She enjoys a friendly poker game and believes that “in life, like the game of poker you cannot win if you do not play”.

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Darin Simon is a Sales Engineer at Recht Associates. Darin’s focus at Recht has been in building a loyal customer base and excels at addressing customer needs from a technical standpoint. Darin has over 25 years of electronic component sales experience. Darin values the mastery to confer with customers and engineers to assess equipment and electronic component needs. He contributes his deep listening skills as a key component of his success.

Darin is an avid golfer, snow skier and enjoys reading and studying about the stock market. When time is available other hobbies include building gaming computers and exercising. Growing up in Silicon Valley, Darin saw the area reshape from orchards and acres filled with ripening fruit to a global center of technological innovation.

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Rebecca Spinelli is an Inside Sales Representative at Recht Associates. Rebecca’s role at Recht Associates is to provide support to the Sales Engineers within Recht, as well as direct support to OEM and EMS customers, Distribution partners and principal manufacturers represented at Recht Associates. Having been in the electronics industry for 30+ years, starting in the OEM segment, has brought about Rebecca’s proven success in her ability to communicate effectively with outstanding inside sales and customer support. Rebecca’s customer service skills allow her to meet customer needs and prioritize projects with detailed organization, this has artfully optimized the success of Recht Associates. With a strong work ethic Rebecca has been recipient of Outstanding Customer Service awards the last 2 years running.

Rebecca had also been involved in the high-end restaurant business for many years and considered this her “fun” work. Having worked two jobs for 13 years, Rebecca found it very personally rewarding. A San Francisco Bay Area native, growing up and watching the changes over the years, has been exciting and unbelievable. Rebecca loves the Bay Area and there is nowhere she would rather be.

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Todd Sosa is a Field Sales Engineer at Recht Associates. Todd’s role at Recht is to bring technology advantages direct to customers with the manufactures represented. Having always been involved in customer engagement, Todd now stands with over 25+ years in electronic component sales. Todd values the ability to bring problem solving solutions and engaged customer service through the entire sales process by listening to the customer need. Todd appreciates the trust customers provide to him as they are designing new and amazing industry leading technologies.

As an avid audiophile and overall technology fan himself, he enjoys fixing broken things rather than throwing away. Self-taught in PCB CAD, his passion is designing and building, as well as repairing analog audio amplifiers. Other hobbies include drawing and working on cars. As a Silicon Valley native, Todd watched it change from agricultural to technology, from cutting apricots and delivering newspapers as a youth, a strong work ethic developed, driving his lifelong mission to explore new technologies, to seek out new products and innovations, to boldly go into the future where no one has gone before!

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Brittany has spent almost 20 years working in customer service and office management roles. She began her career working as an executive assistant for an agriculture company that designed electrical wire harnesses, eventually working her way up to the office manager and then the purchasing manager – ordering many of the same products that she works with now in her role at Recht Associates. Over the years, she has held other positions working across various administrative, finance and sales teams, making her a true jack-of-all-trades.

An incredibly committed team player, Brittany always goes above and beyond for her colleagues and customers. When she’s not working, she likes to spend her time working out at the gym or with her husband and son kayaking on the lake.