After two years at Moss Distributing, Eric Hatfield has taken a job as WIK Games’ U.S. director of operations, bringing his expertise in FEC sales, setup, design and ongoing support to this European-based game maker. According to Hatfield, WIK is seeking a larger presence in the U.S., with his hiring being the beginning of a continued expansion pursued by the company. The make air hockey tables, basketball hoops and novelties.

On top of the new job description, Hatfield has already begun warehousing a lot of WIK equipment. He expects this to improve service on WIK games with a U.S.-centric schedule and quicker turnaround on repairs. Hatfield officially began at WIK on Nov. 1, and took the time to finish jobs he was working on with customers at Moss before departing.

According to Hatfield, WIK’s craftsmanship and dedication to quality control drew him to the job.

“The company is about 27 years old, it’s family owned in the heart of Poland. When they started it was still under USSR control. It’s very interesting for a company to start outside of the government back then,” Hatfield said. “Their products are mainly made by hand, and there are a lot of craftsmen who make it. It’s just amazing how old-school it is, you don’t see that very much.”

Hatfield visited WIK’s headquarters in Poland during the course of getting the new job, and was even more impressed by what he saw. He says once the kinks have been worked out, WIK is looking to hire more of U.S. staff and focusing on distributor sales.