By Chris Olds | Beckett Sports Card Monthly Editor

Panini America announced on Friday that it has restructured its product development department.

Karvin Cheung (NHL), Ben Ecklar (NFL) and David Porter (NBA) will now be in product development director positions for their respective sports. They will report to Martin Welling, the VP of Operations.

“Since I arrived at Panini America last December, my primary mission has been to push all of our trading card releases to new levels of excellence in terms of aesthetics and value,” Welling said. “We’ve experienced great success in these areas so far and these new appointments will only help as we continue to raise the bar. In addition, these refined roles will aid us in our continued emphasis on meeting original ship dates.”

The move places a single person overseeing each sport’s product lines vs. the company having a director for two sports.

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Sports Card Monthly magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.