Aaron Mambrino knows exactly the quality that attracted her to New Britain-based medical device components maker AVNA Inc., where she’s just taken the reins as chief financial officer and president.
Innovation.
“When I can see a product that starts as an idea and turns into something tangible, that to me is extremely exciting,” she said.
Working with major clients through collaborative research and development, AVNA develops a range of components, including an articulating tube used in endoscopy procedures, a titanium heart valve stent and a new type of vascular sealing staple.
The business has been around for more than a century, starting life in 1911 as B. Jahn Manufacturing. It became OKAY Industries in 1968, when it was bought by Edward Okay. Originally a tool-and-die shop, OKAY Industries took on medical device clients for the first time in the 1970s.
The business changed hands again in the 1990s, when it was bought by Greg Howey. His son Jason Howey is now the CEO. It rebranded as AVNA in 2024 to emphasize its focus on innovation — the name is an abbreviation of “advanced innovation.”
Mambrino’s arrival marks yet another new chapter. Longtime President and CEO Jason Howey has now split his role. He remains CEO, but hands over the president’s function to Mambrino, who is also the CFO.
“The organization is growing internationally, as well as looking at different market sectors,” said Mambrino, who joined the company after most recently serving as chief operating officer at Waterbury chemical manufacturer Hubbard Hall. “Jason has a lot of that knowledge, and with this position, it allows him to really focus more strategically on those growth objectives.”
Five years ago, AVNA made a big investment in its manufacturing presence in Costa Rica, building a new, $5.5 million facility that more than doubled its production capacity in the country.
The investment was strategic: Costa Rica is an industry hot spot, with 14 of the top 30 multinational life sciences companies operating there.
Mambrino, meanwhile, will focus on execution — turning strategy into outcomes. Her key responsibilities are operational performance, improving profitability, talent development and IT strategy.
“With the financial lens, I know the levers to push to make that successful to drive optimization of the operation,” she said.
On the production line, she says, that could mean increasing throughput, reducing waste and improving first-pass yield, or the share of products made correctly the first time.
Restructuring effort
Mambrino has spent her entire career in Connecticut manufacturing. She holds an MBA from the University of Hartford, and joined Torrington-based Dymax Corp. in 2001, where she rose to be president of the Americas. The company manufactures specialist adhesives that are widely used in the medical field.
After a short stint at Hubbard Hall, she was ready for her next move.
She had long connections with AVNA, having known Jason Howey for some 10 years through leadership programs. She joined the company’s board in 2025.
“So I’ve followed AVNA, understood what some of the opportunities were and felt like I could come in here and hit the ground running fairly quickly,” she says now.
“She has a fantastic track record on growing companies,” Jason Howey said of Mambrino. “She’s very fiscally and financially savvy, and most importantly she’s a leader.”
Howey said the company, which employs about 425 people in three locations, has been undergoing a restructuring in the last year to develop a team-based approach aimed at driving improvement. Mambrino’s hiring is a culmination of that effort.
Howey will now be focused on growth initiatives in new medtech markets where the company could have a competitive advantage, particularly in miniature applications such as robotic surgery, electrophysiology, cardiology and neurovascular.
Howey said one of the drivers of innovation in medical devices is actually the skyrocketing cost of health care.
“Health care is now 18% of our GDP. That’s a big number,” he said. “It’s really about how do we continue to innovate with new products that really have a very high-cost impact on patients. Better results but less cost.”
Family business
Mambrino said cultivating the company’s base of large original equipment manufacturing customers, and expanding what AVNA can offer them, will help drive growth.
“We’re looking for where we can help them to bring their technologies to life,” she said. “If they have a complex manufacturing challenge, that’s where I see AVNA very well positioned today.”
That can include undertaking collaborative research and development. At its Berlin facility, AVNA operates its NexTech Labs service, which offers customized environments with technology and engineering support for customers to work on medical prototype testing and refinement.
Medical device manufacturing is a changing field. According to the American Investment Council, private equity has invested more than $125 billion in the sector over the past decade. But AVNA is still a closely held family business with no plans to go the private equity route.
Mambrino has spent her entire career in family businesses, and says she likes the unique and flexible environments they create.
“It allows a lot of agility, a lot of decisions to be made quickly, easily, without a lot of levels of approval. And it creates innovation,” she said.
