Craig Pair to speak at ATU-Ozark leader series

For the 2013 installment of its “Leaders in the Industry” speaking series, Arkansas Tech University-Ozark Campus will have Craig Pair talk with students Thursday, March 28.

Pair, a native of Fort Smith and owner of Control Technologies Inc. (CTI), Hi-Tech Products Inc. and CAP Investments LLC, will speak at 2 p.m. in the Student Services Conference Center.

Former speakers in the series include Jon Harrison of Little Rock, Joe Schluterman and Mike Koehler of Paris, and Matt Szymanksi of Morrilton.

Pair is a graduate of Southside High School and Westark Community College (now the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith), where he was awarded an Associate of Applied Science in Electronics.

Out of college, he started Craig’s Video Repair, where he fixed arcade-style video games, pinball machines and jukeboxes. Later he was introduced to the industrial control world and in 1988, “seeing a need,” started CTI, which “provides customized industrial hardware and software solutions for industrial process controls to wide range of customers – locally, nationally and internationally,” he said.

In 2000, CTI was selected as the Small Business of the Year (for companies under 25 employees) by Arkansas Business.

In 2005, Pair started Hi-Tech Products to further develop the products division of CTI, and he started CAP Investments as a real estate development firm.

His other passion is community involvement. Pair is the past president of the Christ the King School Board, and the past president of the Christ the King Parish Council, for which he spearheaded several community projects as a Rotarian.

He recently finished as chairman of the Bass Reeves Legacy Initiative that secured funding for, and eventually erected, a statue in honor of Deputy U.S. Marshall Bass Reeves.

Also, Pair is a graduate of the 2005 class of Leadership Fort Smith, for which he also served as a board member. He was on the original working group for the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, and is also involved with the Partner in Education Program for Fort Smith Public High Schools.

Pair and his wife, Anita, have been married 26 years. They have three daughters: Sarah, Rachel and Hannah.