MONTREAL – Rick Jackson will return to his former post as president of ready-to-assemble specialist

Ameriwood, succeeding Greg Carlson who has left the organization for personal reasons, parent company Dorel Inds. announced Tuesday.

His appointment is effective Dec. 4.

Ameriwood, an operating division of consumer goods giant Dorel, was recently restructured into three operating units — Domestic, Global Sourcing and Dorel Home Products — in an effort to regain sales and profitability. For the past year, rapidly rising costs for particleboard, increased competition from Asia-made goods and shifting retail buying patterns, among other factors, have hampered Ameriwood’s performance.

Jackson spent 10 years with Dorel, initially as president of ready-to-assemble furniture manufacturer Charleswood Inds. and later as head of the merged Charleswood-Ameriwood organizations. He was president of Charleswood when it was acquired by Dorel in 1990 and left in the company in 2000 to pursue opportunities in another line of business.

“We are delighted to welcome Rick back,” Dorel President and CEO Martin Schwartz said. “Rick fully understands both our business and our culture. He helped establish Charleswood and Ameriwood as profitable business units and has an extremely strong background in administration and cost controls. We are confident that Rick’s learning curve will be a rapid one and that, under his guidance, improvements that have already started will be sped up.”