For Immediate Release

Ascential Technologies Hires Nate Van Hekken as Vice President of Sales for Ascential Care

Shelby Township, Mich., July 28, 2026 — Ascential Technologies, a leading global provider of automated diagnostic, inspection, assembly and test systems and services across a wide range of industries, has hired Nate Van Hekken as vice president of sales for Ascential Care, the company’s globally responsive and agile customer service platform. In this position, Van Hekken will focus on team development, driving revenue growth and building client relationships.

Beyond working with the team to strategize ways to make Ascential Care plan levels even more valuable for customers, Van Hekken will support Ascentialytics as well. Ascentialytics is a robust data analytics platform that falls under the Ascential Care umbrella and is designed to seamlessly integrate into a wide range of instruments and equipment, enabling real-time insights, data-driven decision-making and predictive analytics that can help minimize unscheduled downtime.

“Having Nate join our Ascential Care team will have a tremendous influence on the impact level we can achieve with our robust customer service program,” said Erin Dillard, executive vice president of Ascential Care. “Nate is a seasoned, results-driven professional who I’ve personally seen flourish in previous positions. I know his lifecycle management, customer-first mentality and industrial expertise will help our program in profound ways.”

Prior to joining Ascential Technologies, Van Hekken was the vice president of Lifetime Services Sales at KPI Solutions where he focused on developing proactive upgrade programs and positioning various service offerings to help KPI’s customers continue to realize value from their investments in material handling automation technology. Before KPI Solutions, Van Hekken worked as a regional sales manager for ITS Partners, where he focused on shortening sales cycles and providing quicker time-to-value for customers through positioning of prescriptive offerings. He also pursued new business opportunities and maintained a 100% renewal rate for existing customer contracts.

Before his time at ITS Partners, Van Hekken had a long career at Dematic Corp., first joining the company as a systems engineer in 1997. He moved to the sales side in 2004, working his way up to director of Customer Service sales for North America and eventually senior director of Global Lifecycle Services for the company. Throughout his time at Dematic, he focused on strategic sales initiatives, aligning global regions around strategic visions, managing team pipelines to meet growth targets and surpassing intake and gross margin expectations.

Van Hekken earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has also received certifications for Leadership Excellence from the Dematic Leadership Development Program and a KION Transition to Executive Management program, among others.

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Nate Van Hekken, Vice President of Sales for Ascential Technologies’ Ascential Care

About Ascential Technologies
Ascential Technologies, formerly known as Burke Porter Group, designs, develops, and automates complex diagnostics, inspection and test processes across medical & life sciences, transportation, and test & measurement end markets. The company tackles customers’ most demanding, mission-critical challenges where the cost of failure is high. With more than 70 years of innovation experience, Ascential has a global presence and the expertise of more than 2,300 professionals across 40 locations, helping customers accelerate critical solution innovation, mitigate risk, drive competitive differentiation, and shorten time to market, at scale. The company’s uniqueness lies in its commitment to guiding customers through the entire product life cycle, from ideation to commercialization, where quality and safety matter most. Ascential’s customers include Fortune 100 leaders and disruptive innovators. Learn more at www.ascentialtech.com. 

Editorial Contacts
Agency:
Brittney Popa
MBE Group on behalf of Ascential Technologies
(231) 675-1692
[email protected]

Mike Bleau
Industry Scope on behalf of Ascential Technologies
(810) 397-1429
[email protected]