Joe Mann and Dale Hogg from Fuller Industries

Two Fuller Industries Inc. employees have recently taken on roles with the Great Bend Chamber of Commerce. Joe Mann, vice president and general manager, was named to the Chamber’s Board of Directors, and Dale Hogg, who handles public relations and marketing was picked as an ambassador. 

“We firmly believe in the Chamber’s mission,” Mann said. “As a longtime member of the local business community, we feel it is crucial for us to be a part of the Chamber’s efforts to promote and improve the business climate in the Great Bend.” 

The Chamber is operated under the direction of a diverse Board. Members represent a wide range of industries and backgrounds.  

Ambassador Club members, all volunteers, assist the Chamber withnetworking events, ribbon cuttings, groundbreakings, and membership recruitment and retention. Theyallow the Chamber to cultivate business relationships with the area's most successful people. 

Joe Mann 
Born and raised in Kansas City, Mann worked at Zarda Bar-B-Q from 1995-2003. He learned how to smoke meat from owner Mike Zarda while putting himself through college and starting a family. Mann then began his career in the facility care industry working as an operations director for a professional janitorial company, BG Service Solutions, later ISS.  

Every night Mann would drive across the city making sure trash cans were emptied and toilet bowls were clean. In 2006 he brought his operational knowledge into the back of the house as the head of procurement and facilities.  

Mann moved with his family to the U.S. headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, in 2008 when he was promoted to the national head of procurement. “When my kids would talk about what I did for a living, they would say ‘My dad buys more toilet paper than anyone else in the world.’” 

In 2011, Mann and his family moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, ISS’s global headquarter, where he led category management for the cleaning division worldwide for three years.  

Mann and his family returned to Kansas City in 2014 and began a new phase of his career as a global sales leader and eventually division general manager for Diversey, a global leader in the manufacturing of professional cleaning chemicals.  

“It has been very exciting to move through different roles,” said Mann, “From operations and procurement on the customer side, to sales and management on the manufacturer side, I feel like I have a very good perspective on multiple aspects of the industry.”  

Mann, 46, brought that experience to Great Bend in April 2023 when he joined Fuller Industries Inc. as the VP and general manager. 

Joe and Beth, his wife of 24 years, have four children ranging from 19 to 26. They foster elderly dogs and enjoy spending time with their young nieces and nephews.  

Mann has a BA in English and an MBA in International Business. Mann’s hobbies include cooking, woodworking, and competing in ultra-endurance canoe and kayak races. He holds records in the MR340, a 340-mile race across Missouri and the Great Alabama 650, a 650-mile race across Alabama. 

Dale Hogg 
Hogg is a central Kansas native, born and raised in Ellinwood. He knew while a student at Ellinwood High School he wanted to become a journalist, and so he did. 

After graduating from Barton Community College and then Fort Hays State University with a degree in communications and journalism in 1986, he set out on a nearly 40-year career in the newspaper business, 

He and Linn, his wife of 39 years, raised their three now adult children while moving around the Sunflower State as he worked his way up the newsroom ladder in Kansas communities like Colby, Dodge City and Ellsworth. Along the way, he sold advertising for the High Plains Journal and worked in public relations for BCC. 

Hogg started his news journey at the Great Bend Tribune right out of FHSU in 1987 and, many years later, returned to the Tribune where he was the managing editor for 23 years. He left the paper last January and began his public relations and marketing role at Fuller Industries. 

He and Linn are now also the parents of three rescue dogs. They are coffee snobs and love to travel and camp, and are certified master barbecue judges through the Kansas City Barbecue Society. 

Hogg is news junkie who loves the outdoors and is an avid cyclist (having done Biking Across Kansas six times), camper (tent or in our camper), hiker and backpacker.  

“I have been blessed in that I have grown personally and professionally with every career stop I’ve made,” he said. “It is exciting to bring these decades of experience into this new role at Fuller.”