Jose A. Llontop Named CEO and President of Giant Cement Holding, Inc.

Summerville, SC, August 21, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Llontop joins the company after 14 years of experience in the Building Materials Industry where he held senior level positions at CEMEX, most notably as the Regional President for a $1 billion in sales operation for countries in Central Eastern Europe; and prior to that, as the President of CEMEX Egypt, a 4 million ton / yr cement business. During the past two years, Llontop was the President of Saudi Readymix, and the Senior VP of Building Materials for Alturki Group, in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia.

“I am looking forward to returning GCHI to profitability through excellent customer service and product innovation; an efficient cost structure leveraging our expertise with alternative fuels; and a highly engaged, and motivated workforce,” said Llontop upon taking the reins of GCHI late in April.

Llontop’s strengths lie in analyzing current and forecasted trends to strategically improve sales, lower cost structures, create efficient plants, and implement more productive overall business operations, processes, and procedures that lead companies back to profitability.

Past leadership duties also involved managing positive relationships with government officials and local community representatives, analyzing acquisition opportunities, rehabilitating plants, and implementing a time-driven activity based costing, customer, and product profitability process, a variation of which became a standard in CEMEX Europe. He also created and established loyalty and reward programs to increase and maintain customer retention, which was featured in a Harvard business case study.

A respected strategist, Llontop served as chairman of the CEMEX supervisory board in Austria and as vice chairman of the CEMEX board in Egypt.

"The appointment of José a. Llontop as new CEO and President of Giant Cement Holding shows the renewed commitment of Grupo Cementos Portland Valderrivas towards the U.S. market, a market with attractive business prospects.

“Llontop is a professional with a long and successful career in the cement industry, who has held positions of high responsibility in different countries and achieved excellent results," stated Juan Bejar. Chairman and CEO. Grupo Cementos Portland Valderrivas.

Llontop received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, completed his MBA at Rice University, Houston, TX, and attended the Harvard Business School’s General Manager Program in Cambridge, MA.

He is fluent in Spanish and English, and has a basic knowledge of Arabic, French and Portuguese. An avid soccer fan, he was coached by Bruce Arena at the University of Virginia and was a member of the First Team JUCO Soccer All America in 1978.

GCHI, a multimillion-dollar corporation headquartered in Summerville, South Carolina, and owned by Cementos Portland Valderrivas of Spain, provides cement products for residential, commercial, and infrastructure projects along the eastern seaboard.

Its subsidiaries include Dragon Portland Cement Company in Maine, Giant Cement Company in South Carolina, Keystone Cement Company in Pennsylvania, and Giant Resource Recovery Company located in South Carolina, Alabama, and Virginia.

Since acquiring GCHI in 2003, Cementos Portland Valderrivas has invested over $300 million to modernize the cement plants.