Our Team

Gerold Pankl was born in Bruck/Mur Austria and began his career at a Mechanical Engineering College. In 1985 he founded his first company, Pankl Precision Technics, which was later called Pankl Racing Systems, the world’s largest supplier of racing components and helicopter drivetrains. Pankl Racing Systems has approximately 1,000 employees and over 100 M Euro in revenue. Mr. Pankl currently serves on the Supervisory Board of Pankl Racing Systems.

From 2003-2006, Mr. Pankl was the Speaker for The Supplier Excellence Alliance, a Joint Program Office for the US aerospace, defense, and space supply chain conversion effort. During his time with SEA, Mr. Pankl developed new management systems that accelerated the supply chain performance across the country.

Mr. Pankl holds numerous patents for engine and transmission components for racing applications. He owns companies in both Europe and the US, as well as sits on the boards of various companies. His vision is to design and manufacture the world’s the best technical crank mechanism in terms of performance for factory racing applications. Mr. Pankl resides in Huntington Beach, CA. and is Chairman of Superior Crankshaft.

Cheryl Archer is responsible for overseeing and directing all operations and resources of Superior Crankshaft. Her industry background is in manufacturing and the implementation of lean enterprise initiatives.

Prior to joining Superior Crankshaft in 2006, Ms. Archer was the Managing Director for Medi-Fly, a helicopter service company based in Budapest Hungary. Medi-Fly provides helicopter ambulance services and heavy load lifting throughout Western Europe.

Ms. Archer also served as the Vice President of Client Services at L5 Performance Systems in Irvine, CA, a consulting group contracted to the aerospace, defence, and space Primes and OEMs. Her position comprised of working with their major subcontractors and suppliers to accelerate supply chain performance. In the past 15 years Ms. Archer has worked with dozens of companies implementing large-scale improvement programs. As both an executive and as a consultant she led companies to earn Baldrige-based awards and has integrated Baldrige framework and values in private and public organizations. In addition, she has served as both an Examiner (2001, 2002) and Senior Examiner (2003, 2004) for the California Awards for Performance Excellence.

Phil Jones is responsible for overseeing the definition of the processes required to manufacture our crankshafts. He also ensures the timely execution of all programming, tooling, fixturing and documentation requirements to enable the production group to meet their delivery schedules.

Phil’s entire professional career is in manufacturing within in the racing industry. It started by serving a five year apprenticeship with Cosworth Engineering in the UK. Following his apprenticeship, Phil graduated university with a BSc in Manufacturing/Production Engineering.

Phil’s 19 years experience with Cosworth involved everything from operating machinery to setting up FMS cells, designing tooling/fixturing to specifying heat treatment and inspection requirements. For a large proportion of this time, Phil was responsible for the processing of the crankshafts & camshafts at Cosworth. When Phil left Cosworth he had been elevated to the position of Senior Production Engineer.

Before joining Superior Crankshaft, Phil’s last appointment was Senior Manager – Manufacturing. He was responsible for the set up and operation of the manufacturing facility for a major OEM’s racing branch to produce Cylinder Heads and Cylinder Blocks for various high end racing series. This facility also included the development machine shop which was required to support the ever ongoing development of the engines.

Todd Shane is responsible for overseeing the production, scheduling and shop personnel at Superior Crankshaft. His industry background is in crankshaft and connecting rod production.

With over 10 years of experience in the manufacturing industry, Todd began his career as a shop machinist and has worked his way up to his current position, Production Manager. Todd worked as a machinist for both a crankshaft manufacturer located in Anaheim, CA as well as an aerospace company located in Cerritos, CA.

In 2004, Todd was heavily involved with the early beginnings of Superior Crankshaft. His significant contributions toward the start-up and operations planning of the company have made a remarkable impact on the success of Superior Crankshaft today.