BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — Princeton University men’s water polo alumnus Bill Berrien ’90 appeared on the SWARFCAST on Today’s Machining World to detail his time as a collegiate water polo athlete, service as a United States Navy SEAL and current ownership of Pindel Global Precision, a two-generation machining company near Milwaukee, Wisc.
He attended Princeton for undergrad, majoring in Politics, served as Class President and he was captain of the school’s water polo team as a senior. During college he had internships on Wall Street, but chose to follow up graduation by becoming an officer in the Navy Seals in 1990. Bill chose to join the Seals for the small team dynamic. He wanted to develop as a leader, and he liked the challenge. Only 21 out of 121 applicants in his Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) Class 181 passed and his class recognized him with the “Fire in the Gut” award for highest level of motivation and perseverance.
Berrien served on active duty as a U.S. Navy SEAL team officer and platoon commander from 1991 to 1999.
In 2012, he acquired Pindel Global Precision, a New Berlin, Wisc.-based contract manufacturer of precision machined parts and has led the company to be an innovator in its field.
According to colleagues, Berrien often shares an adage from his military service: “Once you leave the SEAL Teams, you spend the rest of your life trying to re-create the SEAL Teams.”
“Bill has done just that (at Pindel),” said Paul Jelacic, vice president of commercial banking at Old National Bank. “Bill has grown a world-class team of advanced manufacturing professionals. Pindel actively recruits and hires veterans, and several leaders throughout the company are veterans. Further, he and his team created an industry-best-in-class professional development program (modeled on the military’s rigorous development and promotion process for its Non-Commissioned Officer Corps), and Bill has become a vocal and passionate advocate for new and innovative approaches to lifelong upskilling.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Berrien and his team pivoted Pindel to provide ventilator components to several original equipment manufacturers, including SpaceX, and then leveraged that flexibility to incubate an additional division, Liberty Precision, which focuses on aerospace, defense and advanced energy customers.
Outside of Pindel, Berrien has been an ambassador for the Navy SEAL Foundation. Ten years ago, he helped initiate its inaugural Midwest Tribute Dinner, which has grown to raise millions of dollars for the foundation to support the surviving spouses and children of SEALs killed and wounded in action and training.
Berrien got an undergraduate degree in Politics from Princeton in 1990 prior to receiving a Master of Arts in International Economics/Affairs and Strategic Solutions from the Johns Hopkins University in 2001.
A 2002 graduate of the Harvard Business School with a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) in General Management, he was a 2009 Presidential Leadership Scholar. The Presidential Leadership Scholar program is operated by the
