What makes the North American heat treat industry of 2022 what it is? As with any industry, the heat treating world is made up of the people who now inhabit it and the people who paved the way for them. Let’s take a moment to think about the past and what we owe to the industry giants, those trailblazers who have guided so many. In that spirit, enjoy the life stories of these three Heat Treat Legends from Heat Treat Today's September 2022 print edition. After all, the industry is only as good as the people in it.
To listen to the life stories on Heat Treat Radio, click the section headings below.
Heat Treat Legend: Bill Jones, Solar Atmospheres Group of Companies
Lost patents, risking a million dollars, and unleashing an entrepreneurial spirit he didn’t know he had. These are just a few things that characterized Bill Jones’ life.
“First, you want to do something that you’re happy doing . . . Then, you must be properly prepared for it. You must have enough education to go forward.” So says Bill Jones, CEO of Solar Atmospheres Group of Companies. A self-proclaimed “technocrat,” Bill remembers being interested in technology from an early age. Technology was the “something” Bill was happy doing.
Throughout Bill’s career, his love of technology often led his peers to complain, “You know, Bill, you’re always interested in technology, and you’re not interested in whether you’re making money or losing money.” The complainers may have been right about Bill’s interests, but they were wrong about how much his love of technology would hinder his ability to make money. Today, Bill and his wife Myrt are the sole owners of four successful, family-owned heat treat companies based in North America: Solar Atmospheres, Solar Manufacturing, Magnetic Specialties, and Vacuum Furnace Systems.
How did Bill go from being simply a technocrat to the owner of multiple businesses? Bill’s answer: work ethic and education. There is no substitute for being willing to put in more than 40 hours a week and to dedicate yourself to your work. But, Bill says, education is also a must: “We, as practical people in the heat treat industry, tend to pooh-pooh education,” and “[the] basis of what we do comes from chemistry. Metallurgy grew out of chemistry. If you don’t have a decent educational background, then you don’t know the basis of where we came from because that’s the basis of where we’re going.”
Armed with his education and his work ethic, Bill began his journey into the world of technology by working with dew point analyzers. At the time, there was no way to continuously monitor dew point or moisture, and Bill’s first project was to produce a dew point analyzer that could measure one to two parts per million. From measuring dew point, Bill moved on to measuring temperature, and this was his introduction into the furnace industry. In 1963, Bill began a career at Abar, where he used his experience designing optical pyrometers to produce thermocouples that could be used at above 4000°F.
At Abar, Bill worked as the equivalent of a chief engineer on a project that he would later characterize as one of the greatest accomplishments of his life: designing a vacuum furnace with a horizontal ring hot zone. When the new furnace started up for the first time, Bill saw what a ring hot zone could do. Bill still remembers the experience: “When I tested that first round hot zone, I did it by myself at night in a plant where I was the only one there. We had a big sight glass in the front of the furnace, and I could see the entire hot zone, the heating element, the heat shield, the ring and so forth, and I was able to measure the temperature and it was [like] ‘WOW. This thing works!’”
True to his technocrat identity, Bill views this furnace as his greatest accomplishment, not the success of starting his own companies. Along with the development of this furnace, Bill helped to develop the graphite hot zone, which later replaced the metal hot zones at Abar. With graphite hot zones, riveting was unnecessary, and the elements could be bolted together with graphite screws and nuts. One of Bill’s greatest regrets in life was not patenting the horizontal ring furnace. “We should have,” Bill says, “but we didn’t know what we had, honestly, and then it got out into the fi eld anyway and we couldn’t patent it.”
Lost patents, however, did not get in Bill’s way. Bill is also proud of the car bottom furnaces built at Solar’s Hermitage location in Western Pennsylvania. Bill remembers the weekly design meetings and running the furnace for the first time. The car bottom furnace was designed to process heavy titanium coils, and Bill was so confident in his work that he insisted on running the furnace for the first time with a million dollars of titanium coils inside. A coworker, Bob Hill, said, “Bill, you’re not going to run the final product first. I think we should make a run with just some scrap steel that we have around.” Bill replied, “No, Bob. I am thoroughly convinced this furnace is going to work and work right.”
Bill’s confidence paid off ; the car bottom furnace worked correctly the first time.
Chronicling his experiences, Bill wrote The Golden Nugget: An Entrepreneur Speaks. Bill’s identity as an entrepreneur was a surprise to him. Bill credits Dr. George Bentley with inspiring his entrepreneurial spirit: “Bill, I want to tell you something,” Dr. Bentley said, “I have observed you over the years and I can tell you, you are never going to be happy until you run your own business.” At the time, Bill did not realize the wisdom of the advice, he did not see himself as an entrepreneur. But now, Bill realizes, “Until you’re sitting in the top chair and until you’re making the decisions of winning and losing, you don’t know what it’s all about.”
Entrepreneurship (no matter how unplanned), innovation, valuing education, worth ethic, and above all else, a love of technology all helped Bill Jones along the road to success. And the main motivation? “Well, it’s very simple: Money is not a driving factor in my life or in my wife’s life. Money is not it. You know, the old saying is, when you go to the grave, there’s not going to be a U-Haul behind you.”
Heat Treat Legend: Dan Herring, The Heat Treat Doctor®, The HERRING GROUP, Inc.
What’s the job of a good doctor? First, do no harm. This mantra, combined with Dan Herring’s love of doing good by solving critical problems, made him what he is today: The Heat Treat Doctor®.
The Heat Treat Doctor® has worn many, many hats throughout his more than 50 years in the heat treating industry. He was a metallurgist, a corporate trainee, an international marketing worker, an applications engineer, a technical director, a research and development director, a product manager, a chief engineer, and finally: an entrepreneur, the owner of his own consultancy, The HERRING GROUP, Inc. In Dan’s own words: “You might say that I’ve been chief cook and bottle washer of the industry, if you will.” These various jobs, and the multitude of different responsibilities that went along with them, taught Dan everything he knows today, developed him into The Heat Treat Doctor®, and made him worthy of being a Heat Treat Legend.
Looking back on his success, Dan points first to his parents for helping him to become the best version of himself. Dan grew up with one parent that gave him a love of technology and equipment and with one parent that give him a love for language and writing. Dan’s father, a machinist, was a hands-on worker and “one of the most inventive people that I ever met.” Later, Dan combined the technical skills he learned from his father with his education as an undergraduate in engineering and a graduate student at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Dan’s mother, a registered nurse, was “an English teacher in disguise.” She gave Dan a love of writing. For over 10 years, Dan authored a monthly column for Industrial Heating. Columns, however, are not the extent of Dan’s writing expertise. He has also authored: Vacuum Heat Treating, Volumes I & II, and Atmosphere Heat Treating, Volumes I & II. These four books are excellent resources for heat treaters, both novices and experienced industry professionals. Dan has written 10 books in total, six of which deal with the heat treating field. Dan is proud of these books because he can share what he knows with others forever, just as others passed knowledge to him.
“I think it’s interesting,” Dan says, “I have had the extremely good fortune of working for two or three people that actually fell in the genius category. These people were absolutely, positively of genius intellects and they worked within the heat treating industry.” During Dan’s time at Lindberg, he met Hobart Wentworth. Wentworth taught Dan the discipline of engineering, taking Dan’s university knowledge into the real world. Also at Lindberg, Dan was introduced to Russ Novy, chief metallurgist. Dan commends Novy for his “infinite patience . . . to tell you what he had learned and explain things and talk about the root cause of things.” When Dan worked at C.I. Hayes, he met Herb Western, a man who holds over 300 patents in the state of Rhode Island. Western showed Dan how to be creative and inventive within the heat treating industry.
Atmosphere Heat Treating, Volumes I & II
(For more information: www.heatreattoday.com/industryresources/books/herring-books)
One of Dan’s greatest accomplishments was establishing The Heat Treat Doctor® brand. “The brand,” Dan says, “has brought heat treating into the forefront of manufacturing, into the forefront of the industry, into the forefront of engineering, that yes, there is something called heat treating and it is a solution to your needs. So, I view the brand as not so much a personal accomplishment but as an industry accomplishment.”
Dan’s love of words gives him a unique skill set. Not only does he understand metallurgy and engineering, but he is also patient enough to explain it and has the communication skills to explain it well.
When it comes to business, Dan’s main rule is: “Be honest . . . be ethical, be fair, try hard, communicate well and have infinite patience. In other words, not everyone understands what you’re saying. You must take the time to explain what you mean to the people you’re dealing with. Although that’s a strange answer on the business side, I think it’s most impactful.” Dan takes pride not only in doing good throughout the industry, but also, like a good doctor, doing as little harm as possible. Helping others with critical problems, getting companies back in operation, and preventing layoffs are events that stand out the most to Dan.
When it comes to life, Dan’s mantra is: Enjoy the moment. “I remember the first day I started to work at Lindberg,” Dan says, “I took the train to work, it was right across the street from the train station, I was walking across the street, I was 21 years old, and I said to myself, ‘Only 44 years to go.’ And I turn around and the 44 years have disappeared like it was yesterday. So, you must enjoy what you do, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
Dan attributes his success in the industry to the people around him. He points not only to his parents for his success, but also to the “geniuses” he has worked with along the way, and to the industry at large. Speaking of his entry into Heat Treat Legend status, Dan says, “I just want to say that I consider this a distinct privilege to be considered one the Heat Treat Legends. But I’d also like to point out to everyone . . . that no one individual can do it by themselves. So, I’m accepting this accolade, if you will, on behalf of the many men and women who toiled in, what I’m going to call, relative obscurity and who made this industry what it is today. On their behalf, I’m more than willing to be considered one of the Heat Treat Legends.” Spoken like a true legend.
Heat Treat Legend: Suresh Jhawar, G-M Enterprises
“Happy, happy, happy.” In Suresh Jhawar’s experience, the best way to run a business is to focus on happy employees, happy customers, and happy bottom lines.
What happens when a young man comes to the United States against his parents’ wishes to earn a bachelor’s degree in Engineering? He becomes the sole owner of G-M Enterprises and gets the title of Heat Treat Legend. At least, that is what happened for Suresh Jhawar, a self-proclaimed “average student in India.”
Without the support of his parents, Suresh weighed the odds of coming to America versus studying in Germany or the U.K. and applied for his visa and passport in a library, away from his parents. When Suresh discovered he could earn his degree in half the time with his advanced credit, he chose the United States and boarded a plane, arriving in the States in 1962. At Marquette University in Milwaukee, Suresh went on to earn a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA in Marketing.
Before taking ownership of G-M Enterprises, the two heat treating companies that were most influential for Suresh were Abar and Ipsen. Suresh began his time with Ipsen in 1970 as a project engineer for vacuum furnaces. Suresh was in the top five at Ipsen, and, looking back, he sees himself driving the company in cost savings, product improvement, and customer relationships.
As the assistant to the president at Ipsen, Suresh traveled extensively to Poland to visit a facility for steel milling and annealing silicon steel coils for transformer steel. During this time of heavy travelling both at Ipsen and later at Abar Furnaces — Suresh visited Poland ten times in less than two years — he remembers the difficulty of keeping a healthy work/life balance. But he succeeded most of the time: “[W]hen Andy [Suresh’s son] was getting an award at his high school, I was coming from Europe . . . I missed my connection. Now it became difficult as to how to get to Philadelphia to attend that awards ceremony for my son . . . I went from one airline to another. I got on a plane, reached Philadelphia airport at the time when the program started, but I was at the school at the right moment when Andy’s name was called. I was there!”
Difficult though it may have been, Suresh often succeeded in keeping work and life in balance. At Ipsen, work consisted of many projects, one of which involved helping Ipsen book an order for 10 large car bottom furnaces. While Ipsen’s president handled the commercial aspect of the order, Suresh handled the technical side of things. He had to make sure the company had the right product and the right solution. And the 10 car bottom furnaces — 84 inches wide by 45 inches high by 32 feet long, made in four bolted sections — were indeed the right solution.
It was at the same time as this project that Suresh was also working on Ipsen’s license agreement with Elterma, which later became SECO/WARWICK. Suresh’s work at Ipsen lasts to this day. Without Suresh, Ipsen would have no manufacturing base in India. Suresh enlisted Wessman Engineering as a sales agent for Ipsen, which began Ipsen’s history in India.
Abar was Suresh’s act two. Suresh wanted to run the entire operation, and Abar gave him the opportunity to do this. Under Suresh’s leadership, Abar increased its profit significantly, and Suresh was asked to write a justification for the merger between Ipsen and Abar. At G-M Enterprises, Suresh’s skills were on full display. Suresh entered G-M Enterprises as a partner holding 15% interest. Within a year, Suresh bought out one of the other partners, and later, in 2005, Suresh took full ownership of the company. He changed the official name of the company to Jhawar Industries and continued to do business as G-M Enterprises. When Suresh joined G-M Enterprises, it was a break-even company. By the time he retired, it was doing business all over the world. “I’m pretty sure,” Suresh says, “that we had the highest bottom line in the industry.” In 2005, Suresh hired his wife, Veena Jhawar, as the director of supply chain, enabling him to focus entirely on developing customers and innovating vacuum furnaces. Suresh’s innovation did not stop there as he was also instrumental in developing the MIM furnace. By 2018, G-M Enterprises was a leading supplier to GE from Singapore to Japan and Brazil.
How did he do it?
“What I believe is ‘happy, happy, happy’: happy employee, happy customer, happy bottom line.” When it comes to happy employees, Suresh says, “The most important thing is to treat your employees like you treat yourself. When I worked at G-M, out of any of the other places, I didn’t work as being ‘the boss’ or on a high platform; I worked shoulder to shoulder with them.” In order to be successful, Suresh believes you must respect your employees and reward them for their contribution, and hopefully, they will be loyal to the company.
Loyal employees make for happy customers. Happy customers, in Suresh’s thinking, have to feel they are a critical part of the solution. This was one of G-M Enterprises’ best qualities. If a customer had a problem, someone from G-M would jump on a plane and fix it, attending to the problem first and worrying about the terms later. Listening to what customers actually wanted, rather than simply giving them what the company already had, was a crucial part of building customer loyalty. With these two principles in place — happy employee and happy customer — the bottom line grew happier and happier.
Along the way to a happy bottom line, Suresh discovered the importance of meeting deadlines. Suresh remembers showing up to a production control meeting with no drawings in hand and the others in the room laughing at him. Suresh could tell they were thinking, “He puts pressure on us, but he doesn’t do his own job.” And so, Suresh never went home that day, but instead worked through the night. In the morning, he put all the drawings into the hands of the engineering crew. “Meeting deadlines and commitment, to me, is always number one. No excuses . . . That helps you to expect [the same] from other people, [because] when they see you — that you do that — they follow.”
Reminiscing, Suresh remarks, “We always treated our employees as family members and gave them due respect for their contribution.” For Suresh Jhawar, success in business is all about happiness.
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