J.L. Becker, a Gasbarre Furnace Group Company, announced the appointment of Jeff Schlais as sales representative for Illinois. Schlais has worked in the heat-treat industry for the past 20 years. Over that time, he has developed a unique blend of technical, managerial and sales skills that will prove beneficial to J.L. Becker’s customer base. In 2008, Schlais founded Absolute Machine Controls Technologies Inc. to provide engineering services for industrial machine controls and furnaces. Then in 2014, he founded Absolute Furnace Controls Inc. to provide process control systems and retrofit upgrades for industrial furnace controls used specifically in the heat-treat industry.