Stephen D. O’Brien

Stephen O’Brien was named senior vice president of A. O. Smith Corporation and president and general manager of the North America Water Heating business unit in April 2024. In this role, Steve has profit and loss responsibility for the seven brands that make up the operation. He oversees the unit’s 5,500 employees at facilities in the United States, Canada and Mexico. 

Steve previously served as president of Lochinvar LLC. He joined A. O. Smith in August 2021 as chief operating officer of A. O. Smith's Lochinvar division, overseeing the engineering, manufacturing, quality, sales, marketing and business development functions.

Steve originally joined the company in 1997 as a sales engineer for A. O. Smith's Electrical Products Company, where he steadily progressed through sales and marketing roles until being named senior vice president and general manager – HVAC, Hermetic and Appliances in 2008.

When Electrical Products Company was sold to Regal Beloit in 2011, he served as their acquisition integration leader and vice president and business leader, responsible for the profit and loss of the Marathon and Century Commercial Motor Business for four years. In 2015, he joined Mitsubishi Electric Cooling and Heating where he was instrumental in transforming the channel strategy through the formation of the Mitsubishi Electric Trane joint venture.

Steve earned a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics and computer science from the State University of New York – Potsdam and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Dayton.