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Heat Treat Radio #78: Heat Treat Legend Suresh Jhawar

Heat Treat Today publisher and Heat Treat Radio host, Doug Glenn, meets another Heat Treat Legend, Suresh Jhawar. In this third installment of the Heat Treat Legend series, you’ll hear how Suresh became the president of G-M Enterprises, what he believes are the key skills of leaders, and what words of advice he has for budding leaders.

Below, you can watch the video, listen to the podcast by clicking on the audio play button, or read an edited transcript.

HTT · Heat Treat Radio #78: Heat Treat Legend Suresh Jhawar

The following transcript has been edited for your reading enjoyment.

Doug Glenn (DG): Well, welcome everyone. This is Doug Glenn, once again, with Heat Treat Today speaking with the great honor of talking with another Heat Treat Legend. Today, we’re going to meet with Mr. Suresh Jhawar who was very instrumental in the founding of a vacuum heat treating company, and other experiences. I’ll let him tell some of that story. But, first off, Suresh, thank you so much, it’s really, really nice to have you with us.

Suresh Jhawar (SJ): Thank you and you are welcome.

DG: I want to have you spend a little bit of time telling people about some of your work background: Where did you start? How did you get in this industry? Where you went and what did you ended up doing?

SJ: I came to the United States in 1962 and attended Marquette University in Milwaukee. I graduated with Master of Science in mechanical engineering and an MBA in marketing. After that, in 1970, I started at Ipsen Industries as a senior project engineer for the vacuum furnaces. Within a year, I was promoted to the position of manager of engineering services. Soon after that, I was promoted to the director of heavy equipment division, handling large and complex projects.

Mr. Wesley Gable, who was a senior vice president of Ipsen Industries, inspired me and was really helpful in my career growth. He appreciated that I was hardworking and talented in performing well to challenges and did all that was possible for meeting difficult deadlines. When my car had a problem, he even loaned me his Cadillac to go back and forth to work.

So, that is, briefly, how I got into the vacuum furnace business.

Check out more episodes from the Heat Treat Legend series!

DG: So that was with Ipsen. You started with Ipsen in roughly what year?

SJ: 1970, and I left them in 1982.

DG: Where was Ipsen at that time?

SJ: Rockford, Illinois and they are still.

DG: So, where after Ipsen did you go?

SJ: Well, I was very happy there. We had almost 400 people in Rockford and there were about 300 in Germany. I was doing good. There were two vice presidents and a president and then after that, I was part of that management team. I was in the top five people at Ipsen and driving the company in cost savings, improving products, and customer relations. I was very happy.

But I was contacted and recruited by Abar, and I was not interested. Still, I thought, “Let’s go and see.” I had close to five interviews with them, up to the chairman of [indiscernible] and they offered me the job. I always wanted a position where I could run the entire operation. Ipsen was also considering that kind of a growth for me, but they said that it would take three to five years, and I was not patient at all. When the Abar position came, it doubled my compensation. So, I took that challenge, and I ran to Abar.

My boss [at Abar], John Henry, when he stepped into my office, I said, “John, you guys screwed me.” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “You know, I came from a nice company, and you have such a bad company here. But I’m very excited now because any idiot can improve upon this thing.”

DG: I’m sure you made him feel really good about that!

SJ: I was asked by John Henry, then the president of Abar, to write a justification. I was in Monterey in L.A., California, attending a management seminar on how to be an effective manager. They don’t let you get any phone calls, but there was an emergency and John Henry was calling. He said, “I met with Ipsen people. Can you write why it makes sense for Ipsen and Abar to join together?” In the night, (I had a nice room with a fireplace), I opened a wine bottle, and I wrote thirty pages in all caps, handwritten. The next morning, I overnighted that to John Henry and that is where it all started.

During the merger, John Henry — who was a Harvard MBA — was not happy where he was, so he was looking for jobs. I know he had resumes out, but he couldn’t find one. When this situation came, I was supposed to take over; when this opportunity [the merger] came, then I was the odd man.

DG: Ok, ok. You wrote the justification and then you got booted.

SJ: Yes. So, for a year and a half, I did a few projects. I worked in Germany, then I went with Sauder in Houston. Every weekend, I used to fly back and forth — I had an apartment. At Sauder, in less than a year, we sold three vacuum furnaces. But I was not happy. They were doing 5 million and losing a million dollars. It did not fit my objective.

Then, a customer, Continental Heat Treat, their president put me in contact with Keith Grier [founder of G-M Enterprises], so that’s how we met. In the beginning, I wanted $110,000/year; they offered me $55,000. Initially, I said no, and I went away. Later, when things did not go well at Sauder (or I didn’t like the company), Veena pushed me, and I took it. So, I came down and joined them and they said, “How much?” I said, “Your number.”

DG: I want to interject because I want to get a few names straight for people. You and I know who these people are, but others might not. First off you mentioned Keith Grier. Was Keith, at that time, one of the owners of GM? G-M existed at that time, yes?

SJ: Yes. And he had a partner, Mac McGuire.

DG: So, that’s the ‘G’ and the ‘M’ of G-M Enterprises. And you mentioned Veena, which you and I know who that is, you especially, but that’s your wife. You said Veena was pushing you to go ahead and take the job.

And you decided to take the position at GM?

SJ: Yes, as a partner with a 15% interest. Later, I bought McGuire out within a year. He was then out, so then Keith and I were the partners.

DG: What year was that?

SJ: 1987.

DG: So, in 1987, you entered in and basically started taking ownership, or took a portion of ownership, with GM.

SJ: You know, Keith was a nice guy and a good friend. He was very good with customers, and he was a good service tech. So, I helped in developing the product line. However, Keith wanted orders, and we could not make money, and we were kind of a break-even company. I was tired and so I went to Keith, and I said, “You buy me out.” He said, “No. I have a first right, you buy me out.” We talked and he wanted too much money which I could not afford. For six months, I dragged my feet, and I was losing interest. I went back and I said, “Okay, I accept.” In 2005, I took total ownership and changed the name from Greer Jhawar Industries to Jhawar Industries doing business as GM.

DG: Ah, okay! I had not heard that official business name.

That’s enough to let us know at least where you are. People should know right off that Suresh was the owner of G-M Enterprises; it is no longer owned by Suresh and is actually owned, now, by Nitrex.

I want to move on to the next question: In your years, as you were starting to either get involved with the industry or when you were in the industry, can you think of one or two people that had a significant impact on you, that maybe encouraged you in the industry?

SJ: Yes. One was Wesley Gable, who was a senior vice president [of Ipsen]; another the president of Ipsen, Les Senet, and then the next president (I’m trying to remember his name), he was very supportive of me — Lu Clay.

DG: And these guys all were just an encouragement to you in the sense of “Hey, get out there, and do it”, or how were they encouraging?

SJ: They liked the way I approached people, the business, customers, I was hardworking, meeting goals; so, I was number one choice for them.

DG: When you look back, Suresh, over your career, can you think, in your mind, what might have been the top two or three major accomplishments that you’ve done?

SJ: At Ipsen, I became, technically, the assistant to the president and traveled with him extensively to Poland and Armenia. Ten times I visited Poland in less than two years, every other month.

DG: Just curious, but why Poland? What was there?

SJ: The steel mill and annealing of silicon steel coils for the transformer steel. At Ipsen, we sold eight furnaces to Armco Steel in Middletown, Ohio. So, there was a large project of ten furnaces. Remember, at that time, Ipsen was doing only 12 or 13 million and that project was like a 6- or 7-million-dollar project.

The president and vice president were handling the commercial aspect, but before that, you have to convince the technical people that you have the right product and the right solution. That was my task. Ipsen was then successful in the booking the order for ten large car bottom furnaces. They were 84 inches wide x 45 inches high x 32 feet long. Furnaces were made in four sections, bolted. At the same time, Ipsen was also working on the license agreement with Elterma, which later became SECO/WARWICK. So, I was assisting the president and the vice president on the technical side of this license agreement and that was also signed.

I also brought Wessman Engineering from Kolkata, India, as a sales agent for Ipsen. Later, after I left, it became a joint venture and, eventually, Ipsen established a manufacturing base in India wholly owned by Ipsen. So, it was started with me by bringing Wessman Engineering into the position.

Mrs. Veena Jhawar, G-M Enterprises COO; Mr. Jean-François Cloutier, Nitrex CEO; Mr. Suresh Jhawar, G-M Enterprises President

Under my leadership with a period of three years, Abar grew and had a very, very good profit, and that’s when Abar and Ipsen came to a merger.

DG: That’s interesting. To me, there are a couple of good things there. One is one of your major accomplishments was that merger between Abar and Ipsen, which was great. But you should mention the success you’ve had with G-M Enterprises, as well; that’s got to be one of your top accomplishments.

SJ: In 1987, I joined G-M as a minority partner. At that time, G-M Enterprises was doing about 1.8 million annually and was a break-even company. In 2005, I acquired total ownership of G-M and brought in Veena Jhawar as director of supply chain and the oversee man of the operation while I was concentrating on developing customer base and innovating state of the art vacuum furnaces with superior designs and construction.

By 2018, G-M became a leading supplier to GE all over the world from Singapore to Japan and to Brazil. Pratt Whitney, Rolls Royce, Bodycote France, Precision Castparts, PCC, U.S. Airforce, and DLA, to name a few.

I was also instrumental in developing the MIM furnace, and proud to say that I developed a strong relationship with the founder and the chairman of INDO-MIM. At that time, they had only five people in their group; today they have over 3500 people.

DG: What was the name of the company again?

SJ: INDO-MIM, Inc.

Then, about five years back, they established the U.S. division because it became that customers in the U.S. wanted U.S.-made things. So, they took the space from Kelly Airforce base in San Antonio — I don’t remember how many square feet it was, maybe a 40,000 square foot building — and ordered two furnaces for their U.S. plant. By then we had already put thirteen furnaces in India. Last year, G-M got orders for three more furnaces, and before I left and when I was working as a consultant, sold two furnaces and then wrote a multi-year contract and on that basis, they bought three more. So, they have well over twenty furnaces in India and about five furnaces in the U.S. These are good-sized. They are 36 x 30 x 84 inches long. In the MIM industry, I believe, these are the biggest furnaces.

Now, INDO-MIM is the world’s largest supplier. Before, Advanced Forming Technology – AFT in Denver, CO — that’s the company with whom Indo-MIM signed a license agreement/joint venture — and then they separated.

DG: I want to talk about G-M just a little bit and speculate a little bit. G-M Enterprises, obviously, is one of your great accomplishments, if you ask me. What do you think it was that made G-M as successful as it was? If you were to look back on it now, what do you think were the keys to making it so successful?

SJ: During my career, I learned that in order to have a satisfied customer base, it is very important to have a talented, dedicated and happy staff. What I believe is “happy, happy, happy”: happy employee, happy customer, happy bottom line. In any business, it’s very important to listen to the customers’ requirements rather than just throw what you have in your basket and offer innovative solutions and then listen. It’s very important that customers feel that they were a critical part of the solution.

"The other very important aspect of business is after-market customer service. G-M built up a high level of customer support in family business." -Suresh Jhawar

The other very important aspect of business is after-market customer service. G-M built up a high level of customer support in family business. In other places, if a customer has a warranty problem or has a problem, they call the home office and the first thing that people say is give [indiscernible]. But listen, at General Electric and Pratt Whitney, these guys cannot [indiscernible]. So, we used to jump on a plane, and we’d go and take care as GM. After solving the problem, we’d say, “Hey, customer, you screwed this thing up. You’ve got to pay us.” I would say, half the customers would pay the full charge, 25-30% of the people would spread the cost, and 10-15% would say, “screw you.” So, it was a good average. That was one of the key defenses between us and other furnace suppliers.

DG: So, your point is, you just immediately responded. Let’s get out and fix the problem, then we can talk about terms later.

SJ: Just imagine: For $5000, half a million-dollar or three-quarter million-dollar equipment is down. It’s not good! So, you go and take care. That’s how you develop a good customer loyalty — they can depend on you.

I’m pretty sure that we had the highest bottom-line in the industry. We had the highest at Ipsen when I was there, it was the highest at Abar, and then at GM.

DG: Well, I’m starting to see a trend here, Suresh. Every place you’ve gone, if you weren’t making a happy bottom-line, it was an issue. You like the happy bottom-line.

SJ: I say, “Happy, happy, happy.” Then, I had a song. In Muslim religion, they raise their hand up, they say, “Allahu Akbar.” I used to say, “Bye GM, bye GM, bye GM.”

"What I believe is “happy, happy, happy”: happy employee, happy customer, happy bottom line. In any business, it’s very important to listen to the customers’ requirements rather than just throw what you have in your basket and offer innovative solutions and then listen. It’s very important that customers feel that they were a critical part of the solution." -Suresh Jhawar

DG: ~chuckles~ That’s a good mantra, right there! How many years would you say you’ve been in the industry?

SJ: Over 50.

DG: So, looking back on your 50 years, given your experience, what is the top one or two lessons that you’ve learned? What do you wish you would’ve known when you first started that you know now?

SJ: What I know now, that’s what we practice: respecting employees and rewarding them for their contribution is the fundamental recipe for success. We always treated our employees as a family member and gave them due respect for their contribution. With the right and dedicated employees, it’s very easy to provide quality and timely support to customers. Customers felt very comfortable when they call, even after 10 years, that they were talking to the same highly loyal staff, and business continuity is very important. Customers have said that when they called our competition, every two or three years, they were talking to new people. So, that was very important.

DG: So, maintaining good people basically is the point here, right? For consistency. It certainly helps with efficiency internally, but on the customer facing thing, it’s very good.

SJ: Very comfortable, yes. I used to go late in the morning, 10 o’clock or so, to work and then I’d stay until 6 or 7 o'clock. Many days, the guy in Parts [Department] was still working! And you didn’t have to ask them.

DG: Well, you know, if they find a good work environment, they’re happy to stay and they’re happy to work, which is good.

Let me ask you this question: Were there any disciplines in your life, things that you did/developed, (again, this doesn’t have to be work-related, so much, although it probably has a positive impact on your work), that were very helpful to you in advancing your career, your life, your happiness?

SJ: One was to meet deadlines. We used to have production control meetings. I was given a task, by the president, to design and manufacture a tube and shell heat exchanger. You could buy them outside, but he was bent on making in-house, and so I was given the project. And, like today being Wednesday, at 8 o’clock we were having a production control meeting and I did not do anything, and all the drawings were due tomorrow. In the production control meeting, people were laughing at me because they were looking at throwing darts at me. In a way, they were saying, in a calm voice, “Son of bitch, he puts pressure on us, but he doesn’t do his own job.”

Do you know, I never went home? And the next day I was supposed to go on a trip — I had a 10 o’clock flight from O’Hare. I worked through the night and at 7:30am when the engineering crew came in, I gave them all the drawings, bill of material, left for O’Hare, and took a nap on the plane.

What I’m trying to convey is: Meeting deadlines and commitment, to me, is always number one. No excuses.

DG: Get it done and get it done when you say you’re going to get it done.

SJ: That helps you to expect from other people, when they see you, that you do that, so they follow.

DG: They know you’ve got a platform to stand on when you’re talking to them about doing the same thing.

So, you just talked about a very interesting situation where you worked through the night to get something done. This kind of sets up for the next question, and that is: How did you, Suresh Jhawar, handle the work/life balance? Or was there no work/life balance, was it all work?

SJ: You know, it was difficult when I was at Abar, because I took a big responsibility, and I was traveling internationally quite often. So, I missed a lot of family functions of children in their school and then, finally, when Andy [son of Suresh] was getting an award at his high school, I was coming from Europe, either Poland or some place, and the plane comes to Chicago, and I have to change. And the flight was late, so I missed my connection. Now it became difficult as to how to get to Philadelphia to attend that awards ceremony for my son. I called Veena and said, “You guys go ahead. I don’t know whether I’ll make it or not.” 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!

DG: That is great! Well, you do what you can, you know? You’ve got to get there. And you’ve got what, two children, correct?

SJ: Yes, Andy and Sheri.

DG: Looking back on your career, what was one of the most memorable things that happened to you?

SJ: At GM, it was easy, because Veena and I worked together. It was pretty balanced; we were both colleagues and had the same goals. It was much easier compared to other places.

Coming back to that: I was an average student in India, a B student, or so. My parents didn’t want me to leave India. But I was interested. I researched UK, Germany and U.S. I found that in the UK and Germany, it would take me 4-5 years to get a Bachelor or Science degree in Engineering. The cost was half of the USA. But, in the U.S., I could do it in 2 years, and the reason was because I already had a Bachelor of Science degree from India, so they were giving me advanced credit, so I started as a sophomore. I did my undergraduate in 2 years here and the 2-year cost was the same as 4 or 5 years in UK than U.S. I used to go the U.S. library, do this. My parents didn’t support me, but I went and got my passport, got visa and I was determined. I landed in 1962 to the U.S..

That is the most memorable, yes.

DG: Coming to the U.S. And achieving it even though your parents weren’t necessarily fully on board.

SJ: The other thing to highlight is: Before marriage, when Veena and I met many times, Veena had rejected over 20 people. She even told me no. But she said, “You have to tell it to my father because I cannot say that I’m rejecting you, because they are tired of you.” She was surprised when I said, “Okay, I will.” And the other boys, they would not leave her. So, that brought us together.

By the way, in front of my father, I was a very shy guy. I didn’t speak much, just, “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.” She thought, up to marriage, “What kind of a guy is this? So timid!” Anyway, then we got on a plane, and I ordered two scotch, and she saw me entirely different! That was another highlight.

DG: Last question for you, Suresh: If you were to give some of the young people in the industry a little advice, what would you give them? I can say this as a fellow ‘old-timer’ in the industry, what would you say to them?

SJ: The most important thing is to treat your employees like you treat yourself. When I worked at GM, 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. That gained their trust. I trusted them, they trusted me. That is very important. Business cannot succeed unless you have people — the right people and dedicated people.

DG: Well, Suresh, thank you very much. I appreciate the time that you spent with us. I know, personally, you’re one of the guys who is always very positive and very encouraging to me. . . . Even though you insulted me a lot! ~chuckle~

SJ: That was in a friendly manner! I don’t stop anybody on the street and insult them. Only between friends. ~chuckle~

DG: On a more serious note, I have appreciated your encouragement over the years. You’re a good friend and a person who has always been encouraging. I appreciate that.

Thanks for your time, today.

Doug Glenn
Publisher
Heat Treat Today

To find other Heat Treat Radio episodes, go to www.heattreattoday.com/radio .

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Heat Treat Radio #75: Reimagining Furnace Compliance with C3 Data’s Matt Wright

June 9, 2022 / CONTROLS TECHNICAL CONTENT, FEATURED NEWS, HEAT TREAT RADIO, MANUFACTURING HEAT TREAT

Heat Treat Radio host and Heat Treat Today publisher, Doug Glenn, talks with Matt Wright, the chief marketing officer at C3 Data, to hear how the company has reimagined furnace compliance to fit in your pocket.

Below, you can watch the video, listen to the podcast by clicking on the audio play button, or read an edited transcript.

HTT · Heat Treat Radio: Reimagining Furnace Compliance with C3 Data’s Matt Wright

The following transcript has been edited for your reading enjoyment.

Doug Glenn: Matt, Welcome to Heat Treat Radio. This is your first time on.

Matt Wright: It’s good to be with you.

DG: I do want you to spend a little bit of time giving our listeners a little bit about your background and then, also, if you don’t mind, a quick summary of what C3 Data does, just so our listeners have a concept.

MW: I’ve been in the heat treat industry now for about 15 years. My brother, Nathan, and I together, we own a few — twenty-five — accredited pyrometry labs. C3 Data really comes as an outgrowth of that. Looking for an opportunity or way to reduce errors, a human element, and to save time with all of our technicians doing all the work that they’re doing. And so, it really became something that we did for ourselves and realized that it could be something that the industry as a whole could use.

When you look at our industry, there are two ways that you can comply with the AMS2750 CQI-9 specifications. One is what I would call the “roll your own method” which is what everyone has been doing from the beginning: that is using a whole panoply of different technologies, whether that’s an Excel spreadsheet, a clipboard, post-it notes, or what have you — anything and everything that you can do to try to remember to do all the things that need to be done, and then you go to the audit and hope that nothing fell through the cracks. What C3 Data does is takes all of those requirements and starts with the spec and encapsulates everything in one platform, one system, so you don’t have to think about and remember to do those things, you just follow what we have you do, and you come out and you’re ready for your audit.

DG: I want to jump back onto the labs you were talking about. Very briefly, how many where are they?

MW: We’ve got one in Ohio and one in Mexico that has three different offices in Mexico.

DG: And these are metallurgical labs, or did you say testing labs?

MW: They are labs that go on site to perform temperature uniformity surveys, system accuracy tests, instrument calibrations and those types of things.

DG: Let’s talk about compliance. Compliance with AMS2750 CQI-9 NADCAP is really an issue that is important to a lot of our listeners and readers, primarily those manufacturers who have their own in-house heat treat and have their own furnaces. Let’s talk about some of the latest developments, the latest technologies in that field. What are you seeing out there, Matt?

MW: When I look at our industry, one of the things that is the biggest challenge is the flow of information — getting information from where it resides to where it needs to be in the format that it needs to be. I think the technologies that have been successful in our industry are technologies that help lubricate that flow, if you will. A good example, I think you had mentioned some of the specs, but one of them is ITAR, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations specifications. In that case, you’re trying to prevent information from going to malign influence and so they’re going to use things like the Cloud and mobile technology. And those are the platforms that we’ve been built on, as well. But we’re kind of using it in reverse; we’re trying to disseminate information and getting it there as quickly as possible. So, the Cloud and mobile technology, I think, are the two biggest forms of technology that have been really helpful.

A couple other ones that we’re actually using that we’re seeing a little bit more and more of is OCR- optical character recognition. This is the ability to take a static document that has information on it and digitize it and get it to where it needs to be. We’re using that to be able to scan, for example, thermocouple cert, so that our customers, irrespective of who they’re buying their certs from, can just take a cert, scan it and build it right into their platform so they can use it to do an SAT in real-time.

Another one is the QR code. You know, with the things that are going on, it’s kind of made a comeback in recent days. Now you can get your wine list by scanning a QR code at the restaurant. Well, we’ve been using it since before it was cool to do that; we’ve been using to scan your thermocouples or your field test instrumentation, so you don’t have to go and look up something in a database or a table, you can just scan it in and, boom, you’re ready to go.

DG: This OCR is interesting regarding the certifications on the thermocouples. So, a thermocouple comes in, it’s got its stats and whatever you’re scanning, that becomes part of your data, if you will, correct? And are they using it for anything else? For example, I’m thinking in my mind, a company who wants to transition over to using a system like yours, perhaps they’ve got a lot of historical documents that, at least, would be helpful. Is that also an application?

MW: Certainly, a potential application could exist for that. We’ve got other tools with forms and things that we’ve put in place to make that transition from going from, what I call the “roll your own” in the static thing and pulling all of that information in. We’ve really made it, and strive to make it, more and more seamless every time.

DG: And the QR codes? Are you using those on furnaces, on thermocouples, or where are you using those?

MW: Any equipment that you use, whether it’s a thermocouple, a field test instrument, a data logger, any certification data that is associated with that, you can print a QR code and affix it to that. You’re not having to go and enter that in manually, you’re just scanning it in using our mobile app that has a QR code scanner built right in — it’s pulling that directly in. The whole idea is to reduce that bottle neck, if you will, and to get that information flow in so that these guys can do more value at a time out on the plant floor.

DG: I also wanted to ask you, because you mentioned about Cloud-based and mobile apps and things of that sort — let’s talk about security for just a second. I just got done doing an interview with a guy by the name of Mark Mills that hasn’t been released yet. He’s a fascinating guy and I’m going to give that one a plug right here- you need to listen to that when it comes out. But he was talking about cybersecurity- he wrote a book called The Cloud Revolution. I’ve also heard at some of the industry meetings that there have been real concerns where some of the larger companies are not wanting their data to go “outside,” if you will- they don’t want to break the ceiling and get into the Cloud, they want it on site. Are you guys seeing much of that? If so, how are you handling that?

MW: It’s a mix. We do see that. Every corporation has their own policies and procedures and what they’ve determined is a safe way to operate. So, on one side of the spectrum, we’ll get people that will be concerned and say, “Nothing in the Cloud,” and we have to have that conversation. Usually, the conversation revolves around what is the purpose of this information? And really, when you peel back and look at it, if someone were able to access the information in our system (which we have very tight security around), the only thing they’re going to find out is the very thing that those same preparations are bragging about on their website, and that is that they’re NADCAP compliant. There is no process-related data, there is no secret sauce involved in anything that we’re doing and so, it’s not something that we believe, and most people do end up seeing it our way that needs to be curtailed from a Cloud perspective.

DG: I know a lot of companies’ concerns are not so much that something will get out about them as it is this Cloud connection is a gateway for the nefarious amongst us to break in and get it. I’m sure you’re seeing that, right? Let me ask you it this way: What percentage of your clients are actually saying to you, “Listen, we want this to not be Cloud-based, we want it to be just on-site.”

MW: If I could swag, I would say maybe 5–10% ask the question, “Hey, is this something that we can just have locally because we would just like to have it for ourselves?” And the answer is, it’s not; it’s not something that we can have locally, just by nature of what it is — it’s an ongoing, continually improving and updated thing.

DG: Let’s talk about another hot point that we have here besides internet security. I don’t know if you guys have been affected by this, but it has to do with supply chain issues. We’ve got Covid to blame, we’ve got Russia to blame, we’ve got all kinds of things as far as supply chain. Are you experiencing any of that yourself for your business or are you seeing it from any of your customers?

MW: I think we are fairly isolated from that in that we’re not producing a tangible product; we’re a software company. Happily, we’re not experiencing that so much. I will say that, from our customers’ perspective, the big catchphrase now is “flexibility.” With those things that you mentioned, the ability to be able to adapt to not knowing from one day to the next if the guy that was supposed to do your SATs or TUSs today is even going to show up because he might test positive for Covid, or something else, really drives home the need to be flexible — to not put all your eggs in one proverbial basket. We’re striving asymptotically, if you will, to get closer and closer to that point where someone who’s never done a calibration before, can pick up an app and literally, the same day, start doing calibrations. There are a lot of hills to climb and obstacles to overcome, but we’re pretty close and we’re going to strive to keep doing that so that people don’t have to worry about what if this guy quits, or what if this guy gets a promotion? The system is going to run, and they can pick up and run with it with the next guy.

DG: When we talk supply chain, I start to think to myself, to a certain extent, I start to think internationally a little bit because a lot of the issues are bottlenecks at the border and things of that sort. But it makes me wonder — how about you guys, C3 Data, are you just North America or are you seeing business outside?

MW: Being a software company, one of the benefits of it is that you don’t have to ship anything anywhere. Being a U.S.-based company, we started out here and most of customers are here. We have a fair number of customers in Mexico, we have a few in the United Kingdom and we’re expanding currently, bringing on customers in France. Right now, we’ve got about four or five different languages that the website and the app is translated into, and we’re interested in expanding. It’s a great question and one that we’re really excited about — being able to not just be so parochial in the United States, but to expand into Europe.

DG: Tell me a bit about the mobile app. Let’s say you’re a manufacturer and you’ve got an in-house heat treat department. How often are you going to be using that mobile app as opposed to how often are you going to be using a desktop application, and how is the mobile app used?

MW: The decision to go with the mobile app came from our experience as a heat treat lab. Having to schlep around a laptop in a laptop bag or a cart with a computer on it, it’s really kind of a pain, quite frankly. Virtually everyone owns a cellphone. So, if we can put this into the power of a cellphone and enable that person to carry one less thing and to have the flexibility to not need to have to have that to do an SAT, to do a calibration, to change a sensor and those types of things, that’s what we wanted to do. You can use the app, you can run it on a laptop if you wish, and we have a few customers that just do that, but most of our customers (I would say over 90%), use the app, and depending on how fat their fingers are, they might go to a tablet.

DG: On a typical day when they’re using the app, they’re using it to do what? Run us through what would be a typical application.

MW: The mobile is primarily just used to do instrument calibrations and system accuracy tests. When you go out to do these tests, there is a whole lot of information that you need to have, and you need to be able to record information. Everything that you need is on the app, whether it’s defining what test sensor you’re using, what field test instrument you’re using, what furnace class the furnace is — everything is there. So, they’re using it just to record information. As they’re using that app and putting that information in, their reports are literally being generated in real-time and waiting for the quality manager to review whenever he or she wants to.

DG: I wanted to ask you about the different standards that you guys are covering. The three biggies we always think about are NADCAP, AMS2750, and CQI-9, and I’m sure you’ve got compliance with all of those. Are there any other major ones that you think any of our captive heat treaters might be interested in? I know the commercials will be interested in all of them, but any our captives might be interested in?

MW: Yes. Those two are the big ones — the AMS2750 spec and CQI-9 — that’s going to cover your aerospace and your automotive specification. We have the ability to give our customers, and a lot of our users do take advantage of it to create their own custom specs. They can just define their custom specs, their criteria, their frequencies, and then use the same platform that we built for these two specs, out of the box, to drive the compliance to whatever spec they want. So, it’s very open — it’s kind of agnostic in that regard. But we just built in those two AMS2750 and CQI-9 specs because that’s going to hit over 90% of what everybody wants.

Just a thing about those specs: Whenever those specs revise, like when CQI-9 went from rev 3 to 4 and when AMS2750 revision from E to F, and now, coming up in June when it revises to G, one of the benefits of having a Cloud-based solution is that all of our customers, when it went to F, all they had to do was log into the portal, find their furnace and go from E and select F and they’re off and running. That’s all they had to do. No training is required. It saves a lot on time of training, and you don’t have to redo the paperwork. The reports and all those things are now current revision.

DG: And Rev G of AMS2750 is probably out. I was just at some industry meetings and the big stink about the AMS2750 is going to a tenth of a degree on some measuring tools and things of that sort. Are you guys are able to handle that? I assume, being the software guys, it probably doesn’t really matter to you whether it’s a tenth or a hundredth or whatever. But you can cover that?

MW: Yes, absolutely. Now the tenth of a degree thing, I believe, is going to be extended for another year so that users are going to have one more year for that. The date we’re hearing and looking at is the end of June, so I think June 29^th, which I think is the two-year anniversary of Rev E to F, so it will be coming out then, if nothing else changes.

DG: The fellows I was hearing from were saying basically there is talk of the extension, but they’ve got to get it passed to actually get the extension, otherwise end of June is the date that most people are going to have to nail that with.

Your C3 Data tool is basically Cloud-based, portable, whether it’s website, phone, tablet or whatever, to help people comply. When the auditor walks in to get the information they want, how easy is it for your clients? What do they need to do? I assume this is where the real time and money-savings come in, correct?

MW: Correct. What we like to tell people is, in a nutshell, C3 Data is going to save you time and help you pass your audits. The time saving is happening all during the year. Every SAT you do, you’re saving an enormous amount of time because you’re not writing in your reports, you’re not doing any calculations — you’re aggregating and gaining time throughout the year.

You’re also going to gain time in your audit preparation because, as you mentioned, when you log into your portal, your ability to find all of your documentation, along with our furnace dashboard which shows you, furnace by furnace, the compliance status of each one of them. You can see, in real-time, the compliance status is a huge timesaver and a real peace of mind that you can walk in with your hand on your heart and know from the auditor’s perspective, you’re going to have a good experience, because if he wants to see something, it’s very easy to find and you’re well prepared.

DG: Timesaving has got to be enormous. I know there are a lot of companies investing a lot of time in these audits and in compliance-related things.

You guys do a lot of work in this area. Are there any good tools out there for any of our viewers/readers if they want to go and find out more information, whether it’s dealing with compliance, what is AMS2750, what is CQI-9, any of that kind of thing? Any suggestions from you on where people might want to go?

MW: On our website, c3data.com, we’ve got a portion there that you can look up for training. We have a curriculum of training courses where they can come and educate themselves, whether it’s, like you say, to learn about what the spec is or maybe take a deeper dive into some of those fields — we have those available. We love talking to our customers and our prospects, too.

One of the things I will mention: In going back to the web as a software service model, one of the things that’s ongoing is the ability to support. We’ve been through so many of these audits and we know the spec probably more than the next guy and when you look at some of the testimonials on our website, you’ll see that they obviously love the product, but they love the ability to call one of us, and if we don’t know the answer, we’ll find out the answer and get them plugged into what they need. We enjoy talking about it.

This year, we’re going to be at the Furnace North America show in Indianapolis which is my hometown which will make it quite easy for me to get there. But we’re going to have a special guest, Doug Shuler, who’s going to be joining us at our booth. So come on by the booth and get all your questions answered by Doug.

DG: If his name is Doug, he can’t be all bad.

Matt, thanks a lot. I really appreciate your time. I’m looking forward to seeing you guys continue to grow and you’re offering a great service to heat treaters, so best of luck to you.

MW: I enjoyed it, Doug, thank you.

DG: You bet.

For more information:

Matt's email: mwright@c3data.com

C3 Data website: www.c3data.com.

Doug Glenn
Publisher
Heat Treat Today

To find other Heat Treat Radio episodes, go to www.heattreattoday.com/radio and look in the list of Heat Treat Radio episodes listed.

Find heat treating products and services when you search on Heat Treat Buyers Guide.com

Heat Treat Radio #75: Reimagining Furnace Compliance with C3 Data’s Matt Wright Read More »

Heat Treat Radio Snapshots

May 5, 2022 / FEATURED NEWS, MANUFACTURING HEAT TREAT, QUENCHING TECHNICAL CONTENT

Twice a month, Heat Treat Today publishes an episode of Heat Treat Radio, a unique-to-the-industry podcast. Hear some good news about the future of the energy industry, learn about the benefits of salt quenching, and discover some surprising ways to increase cost to part ratio in this snapshot of three episodes. Enjoy this original content, and happy listening!

Heat Treat Radio: The Greenness and Goodness of Salt Quenching with Bill Disler

Bill Disler
President, CEO
AFC-Holcroft
Source: AFC-Holcroft

What comes to mind when you think of salt quenching? Do the words "green technology" or "environmentally friendly"? Bill Disler, president and CEO of AFC-Holcroft, thinks they should. Quenching is a critical step in most heat treating processes, and, as most heat treaters know, boiling oil on part surfaces and contaminated washers can make quenching a nasty business.

Quenching with sodium nitrate/sodium nitrite salts gets rid of all the "nasties." It is green and it is good, because salt does not boil at temperatures used for quenching, and heat treaters can recycle 99% of quenching salt. No more rinsing oil down the drain.

To learn more about how salt quenching compares to gas quenching, oil quenching, and polymer water quenching, listen to this episode of Heat Treat Radio.

Heat Treat Radio: Energy’s Bright Future with Mark Mills, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute

Mark Mills
Senior Fellow
Manhattan Institute
Source: Manhattan Institute

After the COVID-19 pandemic and the outbreak of the war in the Ukraine, the world is badly in need of some good news. In this episode of Heat Treat Radio, Mark Mills, host of the podcast The Last Optimist and author of the book The Cloud Revolution: How the Convergence of New Technologies Will Unleash the New Economic Boom and A Roaring 2020s, provides some much-needed good news. According to Mark, energy's future is bright. "There is essentially," Mark says, "an infinite supply of energy. Energy is all around us in all kinds of forms. It is always a question of what technologies are available to tap into nature's energy forms[. . .]."

In this optimistic episode, Doug Glenn and Mark Mills discuss how new technologies emerge at just the right time throughout history to solve the energy crisis of the day.

Interested? To hear Mark's thoughts on energy's future, Russia's role in the natural gas industry, and renewables' feasibility in the heat treating industry, listen to this episode of Heat Treat Radio.

Heat Treat Radio: High-Temperature Material Selection with Marc Glasser, Rolled Alloys

Marc Glasser
Director of Metallurgical Services
Rolled Alloys
Source: Rolled Alloys

"Expensive is cheaper." Not convinced? In this episode of Heat Treat Radio, Marc Glasser of Rolled Alloys sits down with Doug Glenn to change the way the heat treat industry thinks about increasing profit per part. Selecting the cheapest part or component does not make economic sense in the long-run. And when it comes to cost savings, the long-run is what really matters.

Glasser asks crucial questions like: Will the weight of a fixture create a heat sink when a lighter (and possibly more expensive) fixture would solve this problem? How many times will the cheaper part need to be replaced compared to the more expensive part? How much will downtime for multiple replacements cost?

To hear the discussion of these questions, as well as practical tips on logging the lifetime of components, listen to this episode of Heat Treat Radio.

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Search for heat treat solution providers and suppliers on Heat Treat Buyers Guide.com

Heat Treat Radio Snapshots Read More »

Heat Treat Radio Reminisces

February 10, 2022 / FEATURED NEWS, HEAT TREAT NEWS INDUSTRIES

Whether you're a long-time follower or a recent listener, Heat Treat Radio has a history of hits that we're highlighting in today's original content article. Read below to see how this resource for heat treaters developed and check out one of the "Top 5 Most Listened to Episodes" or “Top 5 Short Technical Episodes."

Quick History of Heat Treat Radio

Began in April 2016 by Doug Glenn, publisher of Heat Treat Today announcing the first ever episode: "Metallurgical Posterchildren: Hayley Sandgren." To date, there is a total of 70 episodes that have been released on the podcast.

Over the years, several changes in how Heat Treat Radio presented these interviews occurred. If you've been following the podcast for awhile, you've probably seen the change in images that are used to promote the episode:

Additionally, beginning in July 2018, each episode was published with a transcript: "John Vanas on SX Oil Lifters."

The podcast has also changed in terms of delivery. Heat Treat Radio began with asking guests questions and delivering concise, clear answers. This helped the podcast deliver information to listeners, and you can listen to this yourself if you click almost any episode released before 2020. However, a shift to more conversational content happened over the years so that by 2020, you could tune in and listen to heat treating experts chat back-and-forth with Heat Treat Radio host, Doug Glenn, as if you were taking a walk around the plant with them. Now, the podcast is moving to deliver content in a fully visual form to give you the opportunity to watch and "sit in" to the conversation with them.

A quick run down of some interesting HTR facts (only according to SoundCloud listens) include what types of guests have been featured, how many episodes have been run, and who has been listening:

As a final interesting note, we found that you like to listen to Heat Treat Radio episodes the day or day after they come out; but if there is an episode that is particularly pertinent/relevant to heat treaters -- like "Heat Treat’s Tight Labor Market: Gaining and Maintaining Works with Josh Hale" -- listeners tune in on the weekends and in the afternoons during the week. Sound familiar??

Below, we compiled a series of statistics that may help you select the next episode for your Thursday, Tuesday 2:00pm, or weekend listening session.

Heat Treat Legend #67: Bill Jones, CEO, Solar Atmospheres Group of Companies

January 13, 2022 / FEATURED NEWS, HEAT TREAT RADIO

Heat Treat Today publisher and Heat Treat Radio host, Doug Glenn, sits down with Bill Jones, CEO of the Solar Atmosphere Group of Companies, to launch this new periodic feature called Heat Treat Legends where senior individuals in the North American heat treat market share their expertise and experience with those less senior.

Below, you can watch the video, listen to the podcast by clicking on the audio play button, or read an edited transcript.

HTT · Heat Treat Legend: Bill Jones, CEO Solar Atmospheres Group of Companies

The following transcript has been edited for your reading enjoyment.

Doug Glenn (DG): Welcome, everyone, to our inaugural episode of Heat Treat Legends. We're going to start with a true heat treat legend, a gentleman by the name of William Jones from Solar Atmospheres and Solar Manufacturing. We're going to talk to him about his life experiences and some of the things that we'd like to get his perspective on. So, Bill, first off, I just wanted to thank you for joining us. I appreciate you joining us for this episode of Heat Treat Radio.

Bill Jones (BJ): Thank you, very much, Doug, I appreciate the opportunity. As you know, I've had a long life, and to be a legend is something I never really expected. Most of us don't.

DG: Let's just talk a brief introduction — who you are, where you are right now, and what your role is in the companies that you own.

BJ: I've been a technocrat all my life. It started when I was very young, when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I've always been very technically oriented and technically driven. As a matter of fact, the various people that I have worked for have always complained about that, and they said, "You know, Bill, you're always interested in technology, and you're not interested in whether you're making or losing money. We don't want to hear about the technology, we want to see what's on the bottom line." That's sort of where I came from.

"I've been a technocrat all my life. It started when I was very young, when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I've always been very technically oriented and technically driven." - William Jones, CEO, Solar Atmospheres Group of Companies

After I graduated from college, I went to work for a small company, and we were involved in electromechanical things. A lot of our work was development work out of the DuPont company from their experimental station in Wilmington, Delaware, which was one of the premiere development centers in the country at the time. I don't think it's that way so much anymore, but, at the time, it really was a pyramid sort of place.

In my early days, I was introduced particularly into dew point analyzers. They had developed, what they called, a trace moisture analyzer which would measure down to about one or two parts per million. It was right out of the development laboratory and our company built it, and my boss, at that time, worked out to have a license to build the instrument. I ended up being the engineer in charge of putting the thing into production.

Like I say, at the time, (and we're talking about in the late 1950s or ‘60s), there was no real continuous recording of moisture or dew point. I'm talking about low, like down around -100 degrees Fahrenheit, a few parts/million. That was, sort of, a breakthrough. It was an interesting instrument. The instrument is still being built. So, I was very instrumental in that instrument.

That was my introduction into the technology, so to speak. Then, I went on and I became involved in optical pyrometers. As a matter of fact, I was going to bring with me, and I didn't, one of the early temperature optical pyrometers which was built by Leeds and Northrup. That was developed in the 1930s and it is still used today. It was the standard in the industry for many, many years. Anyway, that introduced me into the furnace industry, measuring temperatures with that instrument and then with an electronic optical pyrometer that was developed by another company. I learned all the problems with optical pyrometers respect to emissivity and all that sort of thing.

Those were my early years. I went to work, really, then, in about 1963 for Abar; I was the eighth employee with the company. That put me into the furnace business. Now, the Abar furnaces, at that time, were very high tech. They were designed to operate at temperatures of 4000 degrees Fahrenheit and up, above temperatures where you could really use thermocouples. That fit with my optical pyrometer experience; it was one of the reasons I went there. So, we were building these furnaces. We built them for the electronics industry, particularly for sintering of tantalum anodes, and so I had a very wide experience with that particular product. Then, it graduated into, and we got involved in, other technology. Particularly, we got involved with more normal, what I'll call, industrial processing, because this high temperature technology was either solid-state related, like with the tantalum capacitor or, at that time, with the development of the space launching and all that sort of thing.

With the changes in administration, we went away from space technology, to some extent, in the middle 60s, so it meant that we had this furnace technology and we had to put it to use. So then, we looked at industrial processes. We started to look at things like jet engine processing- processing parts for jet engines and all that sort of thing.

Those were my early years to get into this business. I went into the production aspect of the furnaces. And, of significant note, we built a number of furnaces for, what was, the atomic energy people, particularly at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. There was a bid that came out for a horizontal vacuum furnace, and it had a one-line drawing of a hot zone with a ring. (I shouldn't say a ring, we made it into a ring.) But it was this line drawing of a round hot zone with this part sitting in the center of it, which I really can't say too much about. But anyway, I didn't design that, but we had a couple of engineers that designed the hot zone

At that time, Abar was owned by a man by the name of Charlie Hill, and he overlooked the whole project. At the end of the day, after the thing was built, (but not turned on), they handed it over to me. I was like the equivalent of chief engineer for the company, so I had the task of starting that furnace up. It was a very interesting experience. It was, for the first time, when I really saw what that ring hot zone could do. I didn't really recognize all its advantages when we first put it online and started to test it, but we realized that we had something different. But, whenever you have something different, you don't always know what to do with it. That's about where we were. In a year or year and a half, we started to see the advantages of that hot zone.

I was instrumental in the development of the gas cooling system. The original system did not have any recirculation abilities, in other words, it would not quench; it was just static cooling. That whole thing of how to do that, I worked on, and after a lot of failures, I might say, we got it to work satisfactorily, and it has grown and grown and grown ever since.

There are other things about the furnace technology that I've had my fingers on and it's been a very pleasant experience, Doug. I could go on for the rest of our time talking about this, but I won't!

DG: That's good, that's good. At least it gives our listeners some sense of your background. And, I might mention Bill, besides being a technocrat, is also an author. He's authored a book called The Golden Nugget which came out in 2017. It goes into a lot of detail, mentioning a lot of the things you've mentioned here, and much, much more. If anybody is interested in getting a copy of that book, we'll put some information up at the end where people can either contact myself or you directly, Bill, and they can get a copy of that book.

BJ: Thanks, Doug, for the plug. Let me say this: Anyone who wants a copy of that book, I will be happy to send it to them at no charge, postage paid.

DG: Very good! You're being much more generous than I was going to be. I was going to say, feel free to call me, I'm going to charge you $50 for this book and you have to pay postage. ~chuckle~

Let's move on. Let me ask you a couple questions because people are going to be interested in knowing some of the life lessons that you've learned and things of that sort. When you look back on your career, which has been a good 50 years, I'm guessing, what would be the top one, two, even three accomplishments? When you're taking that 30,000-foot view and looking back, what do you see as far as major accomplishments?

BJ: The major accomplishment, obviously, is the development of the vacuum furnace, and that particular horizontal ring furnace. We didn't patent it at Abar, unfortunately. We should have, but we didn't know what we had, honestly, and then it got out into the field anyway and we couldn't patent it. Aside from that, that particular approach — that round furnace approach — has been duplicated by all our competitors around the world. That is a major accomplishment and it, really, has my name on it, which nobody will tell you, but that's okay.

DG: That's why we do these interviews. Just so people know, if you look behind you, Bill, on your screen, you've got a round cylinder furnace there. I think that's the type of thing you're talking about, there, with the flat band heating element.

"That was almost unheard of back then. Now it's been adopted all over the place, today. That's some of the major accomplishments."

BJ: Yes, round elements. It's a graphite hot zone which we developed. Our original hot zones at Abar were all metal. They were molybdenum and the elements were molybdenum, and the elements were all riveted together. Now, the advantage of graphite is that you don't have to rivet anything and, actually, part of my development was to be able to design the furnace, the elements anyway, so that they could be bolted together. Originally, the graphite heating elements, particularly the ones that were in the Ipsen furnace, and even predecessors before that, they were all tubular. They were put together not with threads, but they were put together, not like an erector set, but where you have pins and . . .

DG: Yes, couplers of some sort.

BJ: Yes, I'm not thinking of it right. But anyway, they were just pushed together, really, literally. They were troublesome; the joints loosened up. They were difficult. Cheap, yes. The graphite tube was very, very inexpensive. That was done at VFS (Vacuum Furnace Systems) when I established that company. We developed the round, and flat, thin, graphite heating elements which were bolted together with graphite screws and nuts. That was almost unheard of back then. Now it's been adopted all over the place, today. That's some of the major accomplishments.

DG: That is a major one.

BJ: Before you get off this, Doug, I selected the picture, that you noticed, on purpose. To heat treat something of that size and to bring it to full metallurgical properties, which they are (they are actually H-11 or H-13, I'm not sure which), but that's not exactly a forgiving alloy to heat treat and bring to full hardness of that size and weight. That's the advantage of our vacuum gas quenching over pressure. That furnace, or almost any one of ours, if you design it right, will do that job. I can tell you, in my early days getting into the heat-treating business, I tried to do big rolls like that and fell right on my nose.

This work was done out at our Hermitage plant which Bob Hill runs and it's an everyday thing, rolls like this and otherwise. That's why I put it up there.

William Jones, CEO of Solar Atmospheres Group of Companies, shares pinnacle moments from his life and lessons learned along the way.

DG: Right. That Hermitage plant is in western Pennsylvania and, yes, I've been in there and it's a great plant. You've got a lot of furnaces and much bigger furnaces than that, even.

I want to get to the human side of things. You've had a significant impact on a lot of people in the heat treat industry, me being one of them, to be quite frank. But I'm curious: When you were a young man getting involved in the industry, who were a couple of people who had a significant impact on you? Who helped you along?

BJ: I worked for a company up in Attleboro, Massachusetts for two years or so and they had developed a two-color optical pyrometer, and that's why I went to work for them. It had all sorts of problems because of emissivity — that’s a technical thing I don't want to get into — but the two-color pyrometer has not been well accepted because of that stumbling block.

Anyway, the owner of the company was Dr. George Bentley. I was with him for 2 years and I decided I wanted to leave the company. I was a field engineer for them in the mid-Atlantic operating out of Philadelphia. That company is in Boston. George called me on the phone, and he said, "Bill, I'd like to talk to you. I know you're leaving the company, but I want to have a time with you." I said, “ok.” This was back in the day when travel was not particularly great, so it took me most of the day to get up there. The next day I went in to see him about 9 or 9:30 in the morning.

I sat down with George and we both chitchatted for 15 or 20 minutes. The most important thing he said to me, at the end of the conversation, was, "Bill, I want to tell you something. I have observed you over the years and I can tell you, you are never going to be happy until you run and own your own business." I looked at him and that went right over the top of my head. That was never a thought, ever, in my mind. It didn't really have any impact for several years, but later I realized he was right. 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. That was a prime moving event.

"[George said,] "Bill, I want to tell you something. I have observed you over the years and I can tell you, you are never going to be happy until you run and own your own business." I looked at him and that went right over the top of my head. That was never a thought, ever, in my mind. It didn't really have any impact for several years, but later I realized he was right." - William Jones, CEO, Solar Atmosphere Group of Companies

There were two people that were quite influential, and in a negative way: One was George Bodine from Lindberg, and the other was Sam Whalen from Aerobraze. Back towards the end of my Abar career, I had decided I wanted to go into the heat-treating business here in Philadelphia. My wife, Myrt, and I, independently, met with each one of them and their wives and we had dinner. And they said, "Ugh, Bill, you do not want to go into the Philadelphia area in the heat-treating business. It will never be successful." They both poured ice water down my back about going to business in the greater Philadelphia area in the heat-treating business. I cataloged that and, later, did it anyway. In a negative way, those two were very influential.

There were a lot of other people, too. Abe Willan at Pratt & Whitney. I had some people at General Electric that were very influential. There is a whole litany of people that I could thank for what they've done in my life and for what they've added to my career.

DG: Let's advance on here to the next question. I think this is always interesting to find out from somebody: One of those things if you knew at the beginning of your career, something you know now, what would it have been? Given your experience, what are the top two or three lessons that you've learned during your career that you think have been most helpful to you.

BJ: There are a lot of lessons learned. We, as practical people in the heat treat industry, tend to pooh-pooh education, not always, of course; I have metallurgists and PhD's working for us in the company. Anyway, my point is, those of us who are practical engineers and others who have come up through the ranks, like my son Roger and others, we tend to look at the practical aspects of heat treating.

What is the lesson learned from that? Well, education is really part of it. The basis of what we do comes from the field of 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. What I'm trying to say is: What is the lesson learned? The lesson learned is don't reinvent the wheel because the wheel does not have to be reinvented.

I think those of us in our younger years tend not to look over things like that. We tend to say, "Well, we're going to develop this and we're going to do it" come hell or high water and we end up falling on our nose. That's the point: take the time and effort to study what's been done and then go from there.

I would say, also, the other thing is to listen to what people in the field want and what their comments are about what you're trying to do. I think that's the most important lesson to share.

DG: Listen and learn, learn, and listen. Those are good, Bill. I appreciate that.

Are there any disciplines that you've developed, your work disciplines, your workday, or your work week? Are there any disciplines that you've developed over the years that have been helpful?

BJ: As I said, part of your discipline is your educational background. I don't want to emphasize that too much, but that's an important base to start from. My life has been a very workaday place. I have put all kinds of hours into my career and my work. I didn't do it to make money: I did it because, as I said in my early comments, I'm a technocrat. If I see something that needs to be developed, I work on it and I get to it.

I think work ethic, in our business, is very important. People who are successful, certainly in the heat-treating business and in almost any engineering discipline, have to put work into what they're doing. I'm talking about more than 40 hours a week; you're going to work 40-60 hours a week in order to accomplish. I know, Doug, you're doing that in what you do because I see the development of your magazine and all the things that you do; you're putting endless hours into the development of that thing.

The development of a business is like pushing a big cart up a hill. You're going to push, push, push, and get that cart up onto the top of the hill and you never stop pushing. You get to the top of the hill, and you think you're just going to relax and go from there, but you can't. There is always another mountain.

DG: Yes, another hill or portion of the hill. Let me ask you this, because it addresses the next question I wanted to ask you, and that was about work life balance. Have you had to struggle with that and how have you dealt with it?

BJ: Well, that's a very interesting comment. If my wife were here, she would tell you that I've dedicated my life to my work and I've abandoned her. That's not really quite true, except. . . . My wife, Myrt, and I have been married for more than 60 years and she is a wonderful helpmate. She has run the household since our early marriage and raised our children. I did too, but she was principal. The mother is the core of the family; the father is just a procreator, I guess. Getting your life in balance with work is always a challenge. I have been involved in church things for many years and one of our pastors once came to me with something he wanted me to do. His name was John Clark, and I said, "John, don't you realize how busy I am? To take this on is more than I really want to do." And he said to me, "Bill, don't you know, if you want something done, you go to a busy person?" So, I did it.

DG: I've got a two-part question for you, now. I'm sure over your career, you've had many ups and many downs. I want to start with one of the downs. What was one of the most difficult, trying times of your career? Then, after that, I want to know what was a highlight? What do you think was one of the pinnacles of your career?

"There is nothing that beats hard work and dedication . . . ." - William Jones

BJ: I would have to say the most trying time in my career is that I've been involved in three lawsuits. If you get involved with lawyers and with the court, believe me, that is a trial. I was successful in each one of these and not being litigated to the point where I had to either pay or go to jail or what have you. But when you get involved with the law and with attorneys, number one, it becomes expensive, and number two, you're going to have a lot of sleepless nights over it. That's just bad.

Now, I have learned to avoid that, at all costs, if I can. Look, when you're in the business world, there are going to be challenging things — something doesn't work or whatever, and somebody is going to come back at you if they can. We live in a very litigious world, that's the problem.

People don't always live up to their obligations. I've learned it's best to do that. I'll give you an example: Just within the last two years, this was not a legal problem, but we had a furnace that was in the field. It had a deficiency in the furnace, and it was not easy to fix. So, I made the decision to completely bring that furnace back here to our main plant and to give the customer a brand-new furnace. By the way, we're talking about something that is $600,000. It's better to do that than it is to suffer the consequences.

Now, we brought that furnace back and I, personally, went over that with a fine-tooth comb to find out what in the world was wrong with it. We located the problems (it was in the chamber) and I had the chamber remachined on the front flange and that meant tearing the whole furnace apart and putting it back together again. It was only 2 years old. We completely fixed the problem, put it back online and then we resold it. We, obviously, lost money in the whole process, but our customer ended up happy with a new furnace, we satisfied him, and we went on from there. There is just a highlight of some of the issues that you can get into.

There are personal issues that sometimes hurt, but there is also a lot of gratification, too. A lot of people have appreciated the things that we've done, and I've appreciated more what they've done!

DG: Right: lawsuits and things of that sort are, obviously, kind of the low point. Can you nail down one, when you look back? What was the most enjoyable highlight of your career so far?

BJ: 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 a WOW. This thing works! That was a highlight.

DG: If I had answered this question for you, I would have thought you would have said something like starting your company and building two furnace manufacturing companies. You've got four successful commercial heat treat companies, as well. I would have thought that a lot of the accomplishments along those lines would have been highlights for you.

BJ: You're right. And, along those lines, the car bottom furnaces that we've built, particularly the ones that are at Hermitage in western Pennsylvania, are a highlight. The very first one is a chapter on how that furnace came to be.

Anyway, it was designed and built by a group of engineers. I was on top of that. We met weekly during the design phase. We didn't put it together completely here at Souderton, we put it together to know that it was vacuum tight and so forth, then we took the furnace all apart, shipped it to Hermitage, put it all back together again and we ran test cycles on that furnace, empty. It did everything that we wanted it to empty, but that's not putting a workload in it.

One of the reasons for building that furnace was to process these big titanium coils that were very heavy. So, we put six of them into the furnace. I said, "I want to process six of these coils," and we had like a 20-25 thousand-pound workload of titanium in the furnace worth a lot of money, we're talking about probably a million dollars of work in the furnace. At the time, 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." I said, "No, Bob. I am thoroughly convinced this furnace is going to work and work right. Let's put the coils in there and run it." And we did. You know what? It was 100% right. It worked. It was a big success. There have been other things, too, but that was one of the highlights.

DG: Let me ask a couple final questions. Based on what you're seeing going on today in the world, in the industry, wherever you want to take this one, Bill, is there any advice or wisdom that you'd give to today's up-and-coming heat treat industry people?

"I think, from my prior comments you'll get this. There is nothing that beats hard work and dedication to what you're trying to do." - William Jones, CEO, Solar Atmospheres Group of Companies

BJ: Yes, I would say this and I think, from my prior comments, you'll get this: There is nothing that beats hard work and dedication to what you're trying to do. So, what would I say to a young person, let's say, somebody that is in college, and they want to think about their career?

First, you want to do something that you're happy doing. You don't want to work at something that you're unhappy at. If you're unhappy, get out of it and do something else. You want to be happy at your job. That's number one.

Then, you must be properly prepared for it. You must have enough education to go forward. If you're going to be a writer or something involved in marketing, you must have some experience and training in that field. I have a marketing person sitting in the room with me, so I have to say that. She's a young person, so I can talk to her. That's the kind of advice I would give to a young person. You want to be dedicated, you want to be happy, and you want to work at it. You have to work at it. You're not going to have it handed to you. At least here, in our economy, in the United States, which we have a wonderful opportunity, the only opportunity in the world is, really, here in the United States.

DG: Last question. This is a question that I'm curious about. The group of companies that you've established — Solar Manufacturing, Magnetic Specialties, all the Solar Atmosphere companies — are all US-based, family-owned and a single business, separate entities but all owned by you and Myrt.

BJ: That's right. I can tell you that 100% of our companies are owned by Myrt and I. We have no other shareholders or stockholders. Originally, at VFS, I did. That long story is in my book, but no, today, 100% Myrt and I own the businesses.

Of course, this is a two-edged sword. If all these businesses were up and running and they are all successful, like they are today, and if I were 40 years old, I would have another, possibly, 40 years to look forward to and to operate these businesses. Now, at my age, I'm over 80 years old, so how many years do I have ahead of me? You can count them on one hand if that. We don't know.

DG: I was going to say, let's not put a limit on that, the Lord knows.

BJ: That's right, exactly. That's exactly what I was going to say. You and I understand that all too well. It's all in the Lord's hands. Myrt and I both feel that we've got a few years ahead of us, but we just don't know. Someone else commented to me, they said, "Well, your other competitors, and so forth, have been bought and sold by other businesses and you have not." I've looked at these companies that have been bought. Somebody made some money when they were sold, but I can tell you the employees certainly didn't make out on that. Any employee that's involved, particularly if you're at the higher end of the company, your life is in jeopardy because you don't know what the new owners are going to do. Half the time, within two years, you're going to be out on the street and all the hard work that you've put into the company is going to go down the drain.

DG: Right. This is getting to the core of the question that I wanted to ask, and that was that you've got successful companies going on, their family owned, they're going into a third generation of Jones, who is going to be helping to run the business and things of that sort. So many of your competitors, whether they be furnace manufacturers or actual commercial heat treaters, have either been sold, consolidated into bigger companies or, on the furnace side of things, many of them are now owned by international companies, companies outside of the United States.

My question to you, specifically, is why do you think it is that Solar has been one of the few companies that has been successful in maintaining a privately-owned, family-owned business where others haven't?

Trevor Jones is the CEO of Solar Manufacturing and Magnetic Specialties

BJ: We are a family-owned company and the fact that we have not been bought or sold, (and we’ve had the opportunity, but I didn't want any part of it), what's the bottom line? Why? 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. You're going there with what you came with, which is nothing. My father once said, "Money doesn't really mean anything except that you can live a little more comfortably," and he was right about that. But, at this point in our lives, my wife and I are comfortable enough, and we certainly don't need to add on and on and on to our personal wealth.

I guess, to put it in simple terms, there is no reason for us to sell the company. If we can turn it over to our operating people who now are running it, and if they can do it successfully, God bless them, and what I and my wife, Myrt, have started can continue. And, you're right – in the room with me is Trevor, my grandson, and he is the third generation. Behind him is another Jones, his name is Cole, who is now 14 years old. He's not working for the company; I don't know what he's going to do. Trevor worked in this company since he was 16 years old, maybe a little bit earlier. He's saying, “Yes, I think you're right” His whole life, like mine, has been dedicated to this business. I don't know if that answers your question.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Jamie Jones, a grandson of Bill Jones, brother of Trevor Jones, and the father of Cole Jones, is also one of the key third generation leaders. Jamie is president of Solar Atmospheres in Souderton and Trevor leads Solar Manufacturing in Sellersville.

DG: Yes, I think it does. I think your quick answer- you're not a money driven person says a lot.

Well, Bill, that's it. I really appreciate the time you've taken to spend with us. I want to encourage people in the industry to make sure that they pick up a copy of your book, The Golden Nugget - An Entrepreneur Speaks, by William Jones and Heather Idell. It's worth reading. Bill, thank you very much. I really appreciate the time you spent with us, today, and congratulations on being a heat treat legend.

BJ: Thank you very much. The Lord's blessed us in that respect, Doug, and you.

DG: Yes. Thank you very much.

BJ: You're welcome. Bye-bye.

Doug Glenn
Publisher
Heat Treat Today

To find other Heat Treat Radio episodes, go to www.heattreattoday.com/radio and look in the list of Heat Treat Radio episodes listed.

Heat Treat Legend #67: Bill Jones, CEO, Solar Atmospheres Group of Companies Read More »

Heat Treat Radio #66: Heat Treat’s Tight Labor Market: Gaining and Maintaining Workers, with Josh Hale

November 11, 2021 / FEATURED NEWS, HEAT TREAT NEWS INDUSTRIES, HEAT TREAT RADIO

Heat Treat Radio host Doug Glenn has a timely discussion with Josh Hale of International Search Partners, North America’s only heat treat specific headhunter organization, about the exceptionally tight labor market and what captive and commercial heat treat shops can do to gain and maintain the valuable workers they’re in need of.

Below, you can either listen to the podcast by clicking on the audio play button, or you can read an edited transcript.

HTT · Heat Treat Radio: Heat Treat’s Tight Labor Market: Gaining and Maintaining Works with Josh Hale

The following transcript has been edited for your reading enjoyment.

One of the canine "workers" at International Search Partners

Doug Glenn (DG): I don't think that we've had a non-technical issue that is as important as this one, and that is the labor shortage that is real and that most people believe is going to get only worse over the next several years. Here to discuss that with us is Josh Hale who is with International Search Partners. Josh, first off, welcome to Heat Treat Radio. If you don't mind, if you would give our listeners just a brief background about you, where you come from, and your role in helping people fill roles in the heat treat industry.

Josh Hale (JH): Yes, for sure. Thanks for having me, Doug. I've been recruiting since about 2004, and when I say recruiting, I mean helping different companies identify, hire and engage, and eventually bring on board employees at all various types of levels. We are International Search Partners. We are actually founded in 1998, so for over 20 years we've been working pretty exclusively in the heat treat space. I always kind of say we do about half our business with furnace and other manufacturers, about half with commercial heat treaters and then a mix of stuff tangential to the industry, whether that be forging companies or other kind of industrial manufacturing. Again, I've been recruiting in personnel, hiring, and job market space for a long time. I came and joined ISP and acquired the company about six or seven years ago now. ISP has a long history in heat treat, I've got a lot of history in recruiting, and here we are.

DG: You're in the right business at the right time, I can tell you, because it seems very interesting out there. I was looking at your website and I've got to deviate a little bit. So, it's not just you – apparently you've got at least one other person and two canines that are helpful to you, yes?

JH: Haha, yes! In fact, one of the canines is here in the room. If the computer wasn't mounted up I could show him off.

DG: So, you've got Jessica Maier as one of your helpers? A partner?

Jessica Maier
Senior Recruiter
International Search Partners

JH: Yes, exactly. Jessica works with us. She's based out of San Diego. I'm based out of Austin Texas. We both work remote, working from home. I've got the weekend vibes with the Hawaiian shirt today. I don't need to go into the office or anything. But yes, we work very consistently and tightly together. Then, there is Jim McNeal, who actually founded our company in 1998. We jokingly call him "President Emeritus," but with that emeritus status, he works with us on a few select clients here and there. Then, we've got a rotating group of consultants that we bring on board on more of an ad hoc basis, so we're prepared and able to scale, as necessary, for hot markets like this. But, the core is me and Jessica, and for smaller industries like heat treat, that works pretty well.

I would be remiss not to mention that we also have a new junior recruiter- Jessica just recently had a baby, so 2-month old Lincoln is practicing to be able to pick up the phone here pretty soon to help us out too.

DG: Well, at the time of this recording, since we're talking about babies, one of our staff members is actually in the hospital delivering.

JH: In about 25 years we'll be celebrating the new 40 Under 40 class between them.

DG: Right, exactly. And, you know, I should mention that Josh was a member of our 40 Under 40 Class in 2019.

Let's talk about this: Based on your business, you, probably more than anybody in the heat treat industry, have a good 30,000 foot view of the labor situation. Is it severe? How severe is it and what can we say about that at this point?

JH: I haven't seen anything like this in all my years of recruiting, in or outside of heat treat. I think it's affecting a lot of industries. Most of the data points I would reference on this are a little more empirical, but for example, I was in St. Louis for the ASM Heat Treat show a couple weeks ago. I was just kind of making my rounds and saying “hi” to people as I like to go to these shows to put a face behind a name with people I typically spend time on the phone with or emailing, and everybody was telling me, "Hey, we need help. Please help me find a candidate. We need candidates. Please send us resumes." That was the consistent theme. So, there is an empirical data point.

We tend to keep track of our open searches in a fluid way, if you will. Without getting into the weeds too much, what I mean by that is that we've got clients that come to us with, "Hey, we've got an empty seat, we need to fill it. Go out there and find somebody." We've got clients who come and retain our services for really urgent searches, but we actually do quite a lot of business in, what I call, “keeping our eyes open.” Like, you don't necessarily have an opening but you like to see a good talent when you come across it. Since I specialize in the industry, I can keep you in mind. We do a lot of work that way too which is less of an open position and more of a “keep your eyes open” situation.

With that, it's how we work. Typically, we may have anywhere between 20-30 real open positions and then maybe 50% more on this “keep your eyes open” thing. Right now, I have probably 50-55 actual open positions. This is twice as much as normal. Honestly, in this type of market, this is with me not doing any kind of real outbound efforts to generate new positions because I have too much to work on. Again, it's kind of empirical- it's not real data driven, but from my experience, I've never seen it like this.

DG: So, in essence, it is real; I don't think we have to convince anyone of that. From your perspective, it's pretty nearly doubled the number of open positions that you're actively looking for, and I'm sure there would be a lot of other people in that other category you mentioned about- if you find somebody, let me know.

JH: And, certainly, there is an opportunity for a lot more open positions if I were to chase after it. I'm just in a situation where there is so much business right now for existing clients that getting a new client would be difficult.

DG: Well, after this airs, you might have to hire a third and fourth partner to get things going, because, I can tell you, there's a lot of people looking.

Just anecdotally from our side, myself and my wife just got back from attending the Metal Treating Institute fall meeting this year down in your neck of the woods, down in San Antonio. To a man, to a company, to a person, everybody was looking for people to work. It could be in key, higher level management areas as well as shop floor- I need a guy that knows how to load a furnace.

In your company, specifically, very briefly: Are you guys dealing with furnace operator type people or do you tend to deal with more of the engineer/management type folks?

JH: More of the engineer/management type folks is where we really specialize. We placed a furnace operator or two in the last couple of years, but it's very rare for us. But, from talking to customers/clients/people, those hourly production type positions are definitely a situation where companies are struggling. It's kind of a long way to answer your question but historically we haven't really done a lot of work in that space because at that hourly production level you can hire somebody off the street and train them. You're not going to necessarily pay my fee to go out there and find that type of person, while in this market, more and more companies are telling me they're willing to pay a fee if we can find somebody, so it's coming up more and more.

DG: And that is the operative word – if you can find someone, which is not easy. Obviously, a lot of those jobs tend to be more regional – you can hire people locally, but it is difficult.

I want to delve into causation a bit. We know we've got a very, very tight labor market, and there are a lot of theories around about why that is. I'm curious, from your perspective, Josh, what's causing it? What's the issue here?

JH: There is a lot of theorization out there. I could spend hours going down the rabbit hole. There are some really interesting theories. In fact, did you listen to the guy speak the keynote at MTI? He talked a little bit about this idea of men not coming back to the workforce. I've listened to some of his talks and one thing that he mentions that I really buy into is this idea that the boomer generation had dual incomes, they were working and they really generated a lot of wealth and that wealth now about to get inherited by younger generations. These younger generations see that and aren't necessarily motivated to work as much.

People are moving towards the “YOLO Economy”

This is the kind of theory that I would buy into because one of the other aspects that I'm seeing a lot of in the market (and I've heard people pine on in some of the editorials out there) is this idea they call the "YOLO Economy." The YOLO Economy is, basically, the idea that you only live once. Now people are coming at this, especially coming out of COVID, like, "I don't want to go back to that job. I want to try to get the band back together. I want to go write a novel. I want to do crafts and they start a little Etsy business and sell those on-line. I can travel more." They maybe want to work part-time and travel, especially if they've got some foundation from an inheritance, I see that as a real factor here.

For someone like me, a hardworking, nose-to-the-grindstone kind of guy, this is so hard to put my mindset around, but I hear it come up a lot. It's like, "Hey, I'm done going into the office 40 hours a week."

DG: Very, very interesting. First off, YOLO is great; I hadn't heard that before, so that's helpful. But, you know, it is interesting the change in psychology, if you will. It's something only a first world nation, first world economy, which is a lot of the western hemisphere is these days, where there is enough wealth out there that they don't really need to worry about working. I'm a boomer, right? I'm on the tail end of the boomers, so yes, double income or whatever, the kids wouldn't necessarily need to worry about working and, if you don't need to work, you don't. That is the nature of man.

JH: Another factor that I think has come into play here, speaking of not working (especially COVID affected this): people are retiring earlier. If you were going to retire in three or four years and then COVID hits, "I might as well do it now," that kind of thing is coming up. That affects heat treat, especially, as it's kind of an older industry in terms of the core workforce. We're seeing a lot of that too. So, people retiring, people not wanting to go back to work- all those factors definitely affect it. There is a confluence of things. Like I said, we could go hours going down this rabbit hole – it's really interesting.

DG: Even things as political as immigration policy are certainly having an effect on the labor market.

Let's move on to this: What kind of advice would you give, Josh, to companies nowadays who are looking to fill a position, which is, essentially, as we said, pretty much everybody? From your perspective, what are some of the fundamentals they ought to be thinking about?

JH: The analogy I like to use, when people talk about recruiting or hiring, is the sports team: If you were trying to build out the world's greatest basketball team – just like you're trying to build out the world's greatest heat treat or the world's greatest furnace OEM – if you're going to try to do that, you want the best people to try out for your team.

If you take this analogy down further, when you're trying to build the world's best basketball team, you're not going to hope that LeBron James applies to join your team. You're going to go out there and tap him on the shoulder and say, "Hey, my team's really good. Come and join us. We're a championship squad." You need to take that proactive recruiting approach. That's part of the services that obviously our company offers; we specialize in this, we're in this day in and day out, and we're building up this bench of people to go out there and proactively recruit, again, not coming in and applying to a job.

But you can do that if you have your own company too. I would advise anybody who owns a business or is managing a business to have a good pipeline of people at the ready all the time. It's easy to get comfortable – I've got my team, I've got my department set up. It's not going to be like that a lot. Somebody like me might go in there and pull somebody away.

"The 'LeBron James' style of recruiting is proactive and necessary."-Josh Hale

DG: You're not doing yourself any favors with that, Josh.

JH: Well, you know, if it happens, I always tell people, you can either be a client or you can be a source, one or the other. But yes, somebody might retire, somebody might take that YOLO philosophy and leave. So, you should always have that bench going, always continually be networking. I tell people, too, you don't want to be afraid to “top-grade”: If you do have the opportunity to bring somebody in who's maybe better than the existing person, that can help you and your team and can build up the morale and the overall core a little bit better.

DG: What do you mean by that? Are you suggesting you replace a person with whom you are currently happy with somebody who’s better, or just hire them in addition to that person?

JH: If you can hire in addition to is the best solution because it widens your bench a little bit, to use the sports team analogy, if you can replace your starter, put your starter on the bench, and have a great guy who can come in and pinch hit or whatever, that helps a lot.

So just have that kind of philosophy. It's kind of a forward thinking philosophy, it's a proactive-type philosophy. I think that's the biggest thing. You can't wait until someone gives notice and leaves, now you've got an empty seat and now you’re struggling and your hair is on fire. You really need to do this constantly. That's my biggest piece of advice.

The other bullet point that comes up when I think about this, (and there are people out there that don't want to hear it), but you really need to kind of loosen your requirements a little bit. People come to me saying, "Hey, I've got an opening. We need to have XYZ on the resume and everything else." And I say, "Look, that person you're looking for just doesn't exist." You've got to be a little more realistic in your requirements and hopefully that will help attract the right people.

DG: Once they've got that person in house, one of the other big concerns here is they can gain the right people, but how do you maintain them? What type of advice would you give companies for keeping good workers?

JH: Again, it goes back to the idea of trying to be a little more forward thinking. I think COVID shifted a lot of things. I've seen a lot of stats. More and more people are allowing people to work from home. That's not always possible in the heat treat or commercial manufacturing type environment, but if it is possible to spend a day at home doing some CAD drawings, let them do that. That engages them more and makes them feel more at home.

Being creative with some of the compensation. More and more companies are paying more and more. I think wages are going to generally increase. But, at the end of the day, the market is the market, so I don't expect anybody to overpay just to hire somebody. There are other creative ways of compensation. Vacation is a big one, some work-life balance. . . There are types of benefits. Those kinds of things go a long way.

Offer autonomy, purpose, and mastery in your workplace to maintain workers.

And then, too, trying to have good morale. Morale is kind of a cliche word, but I think it carries a lot of weight. It gives you a reputation in the market as a place that you want to work for. I've heard it said that people like to work for, basically, three things: autonomy, purpose, and mastery. Get somebody in there and give them those things. Give them some opportunity to work and 'do their thing' with that autonomous nature, not being micromanaged. Give them some ability to be trained to grow and develop to create that mastery. And, if you can get them on there for a bigger purpose, that really helps a lot too. People don't want to be just a cog in the system. If they know they're contributing to, whatever it is, growth or more market share or new R&D development, these kinds of things. If they're contributing to something bigger, that's going to keep them on board and it's going to keep them passionate about it and it's going to probably help them maybe think they want to bring their friends into the fold. That's another great way to hire- the internal referral program.

DG: Have you seen, over the time you've been doing this, the motivation for people who want to work change? I know the guys you were talking about, the fellow who gave the presentation at the most recent MTI meeting, they talked about the differences in the generations- the boomers, the X, the Y, the millennials, whatever. Have you seen tangible evidence of a shift in the motivation of what really does engage the different age groups?

JH: I'm going to answer that a couple different ways. At the end of the day, nobody is working for free. Salary is a consistent hot bun for anybody looking to make a move. But I have seen, and a lot of people tell me, that one of their reasons they are looking to leave their company is stagnation. So, I talk about that kind of overall purpose. A lot of people I talk to are saying, "The company I'm with has been doing the same thing in the same way for 50 years and I'm interested in making some upgrades." I can't tell you how many times I've placed a candidate. I ask everybody I work with, "Why are looking to make a move? Why would you consider leaving your current company?" One of the consistent answers I get is, "Well, you know, I made a suggestion for an improvement and my boss told me that we're not going to do that. I know it's going to make an impact and they're not letting me." Having that, again, forward thinking, engaged employees, try their ideas out, be willing to invest in new technology. If you've still got microfiche in your company, you're doing something wrong.

DG: For those of you who don't know what that is, you better Google that one: microfiche.

JH: But I am serious. Move on to the touchscreen computers or the iPads. People are still doing stuff in triplicate in field service reports and things like this. People want to work for technologically advanced company that they can feel good about.

People want to work for technologically advanced companies that they can feel good about.

DG: I'm going to see if you know this one: I was telling somebody the other day, I said, "I still remember when I was in school using a mimeograph machine." I don't know if you know what that one is.

JH: I don't think I've heard of that!

DG: That was the way before Xerox machines. When you did hard copies, you put this thing on a drum and you basically turn it and it would crank out copies in blue. Anyhow, it's an old time one.

Let's move from the company’s perspective of advice to help a company who's looking to hire someone to just talking to the individual who might be in a position that you just talked about or maybe some other motivation like, "You know what? It's time for me to move." They need to make a move for whatever the reason might be. Is there any advice you can give those people for entering a labor market? Obviously, it's a job seeker's market, right?

JH: I'd say a couple things: One, my first piece of advice is, as you said, it is a job seeker's market. But it's now. This is not a job seeker's market forever.

Strike while the iron is hot. If you have any potential idea or any inkling that maybe there is something better out there for you, I'm of the opinion, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I use the idea of big mistake, small mistake. It would be a big mistake to pass on the opportunity to land your dream job, but the small mistake to spend 30 minutes on a phone interview with a company. I would encourage somebody to talk to anybody, to put those feelers out there, have those initial phone interviews.

Now, when you get down the process of an interview, if you decide you don't want to work for the company, you don't want to waste people's time, but for an initial phone interview, sending a resume off, it is truly nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's a big mistake to miss an opportunity but a little mistake to not even try. I would definitely encourage that.

Also, if people are really looking out for their career, if at all possible, opening up the geography helps a lot. I know for some people that's just not possible, but if you could be just a little bit more bold in looking at some potential different regions/areas, that definitely opens up the door for a lot more potential.

People ask for my advice that are looking for the next step. People have in their mind this idea that their career progression is going to be on a linear upgrade. I tell people it's not always going to be like that. If you think of it more like a step up, across, up, across – with that visual – I think it sometimes helps people. What you're going to want to do is leverage your current skills to get to that next company that can then catapult you up a bit. But it's not necessarily going to be going from engineer to engineering manager; it might be going from engineer to senior engineer with opportunity to move to engineering manager.

Be realistic in some of those expectations and not being afraid to utilize your skill set and leverage that to a new company. I hear a lot of times people saying, "Well, I've been an engineer for 10 years. I'm kind of bored with it. I don't want to do CAD drawings anymore." And I say, "But you're really good at that and that's in demand right now. Maybe get with a company where you can do 80% CAD instead of 100% CAD and spend 20% of your time on projects you like." You kind of step up instead of just going linear with the growth.

DG: What do you say to those people, (some might call them naysayers, others might call them very pragmatic people), who say, "Well the grass is always greener." What do you say to those folks who are kind of discouraging employees from looking at something else because, "You're going to go over to that company and it's not going to be what you thought it was.”

JH: There is certainly some validity to that. But, also, like I said, it's kind of a nothing ventured, nothing gained situation. I think that people who have really successful careers are bold, and they take some of these risks. Also, you've got to look at it on a case by case basis. There has been many a time when I've talked to somebody who's had a jumpy work history and maybe has had that "grass is greener" mentality a little too often. I've told them, "Look, you should probably get a couple years under your belt before you talk to me."

Find the happy medium between being too jumpy and being too stable in your career.

There are cases where that makes sense, but I think especially in heat treat, I've seen a lot of people that have been stable, they stay at their company a long time. If you've been with your company, especially going on the 10 year mark, it's kind of time to think about it. I'd say between 7-12 years, you've got to start thinking, "Are you going to retire at the company you are at now or are you going to start to make a move?" There is the opposite of being too jumpy and that's being too stable. Sometimes people look at someone like, "You've been with only one company for 30 years? You're not going to learn our ways."

There is kind of a happy medium there. Like I said, I'd tell people, look, be bold. Don't be afraid to take risks. This is a good market, and your skills are in demand. If you land with the wrong company, you'll find something else. It's not that big of a risk. But, when you're going through the interview process, ask a lot of questions. The candidate is interviewing the company as much as the company is interviewing the candidate.

DG: It's a scary thing to change jobs. I've heard statistics say that the one thing that frightens people more than public speaking is losing their job.

Now you mentioned, one of your first pieces of advice for potential job seekers was strike while the iron is hot. This is the time. You mentioned it's not going to last forever. How long do you think this tight labor market is going to be around? What's you prognostication here?

JH: For my business, I hope forever. But, seriously, I don't think so. These things are cyclical. I would say that we've probably got at least another 2-3 years that it's going to be like this. And then we'll probably see the broader economy start to shift at that time. I think, too, it's going to depend a little bit on how our industry is affected, specifically. There are some political implications. I think COVID helped quite a bit in bringing some of the manufacturing on shore, which I've read about in Heat Treat Today a couple of times. There are some things in our industry that might make it even tighter for longer.

I think, too, and maybe you have some comments on this, Doug, from the MTI meeting [in October 2021], but there seems to be a little bit of resistance in heat treat to get with some technology that can bring in some robotics and things of this nature, that would probably help with the labor market, but I think in our industry and specifics, it doesn't go that way as fast as some other industries.

DG: I think that's true. I was listening to those conversations when they were talking about the introduction of robotics. To me, my initial thought was, "Well that's easy. Robotics are easy if you've got high volume, low variable production." In other words, you're running a lot of the same part. Especially with commercial heat treating, which is not necessarily a large portion of the audience that we have, a lot of what we have are the captive heat treater, but, especially in the commercial heat treat world, you're dealing with basically a job shop which is very hard to automate.

But, with our more typical listener/reader with the captive heat treat shops, there is the opportunity for that and those things could, definitely, make a difference in the labor market. Yes, it's important. I think those people will move in that direction. I think we all will, the more comfortable we become with automation and artificial intelligence and things like that, the more we'll move in that direction.

This has been good. Is there anything else? I always like to ask the question just in case there is anything that has popped to your mind that you think would be helpful to our listeners. Anything else you would want to add?

JH: It's a really interesting time right now. I don't know that I'd add anything than what we've talked about. There is a lot of speculation out there. There are a lot of interesting analyses about what's happening. Like I said, it could be a rabbit hole we spend a lot of time going down. But, for sure, if there is anybody thinking there is even a potential opportunity, I'd strike now while the iron's hot. And, for companies looking to hire, I would get creative and try to be proactive and reach out to people and try to have that bench of candidates and try to think about how you can loosen your requirements, whether it be in-house training or maybe have somebody who hits 8 out or 10 bullet points you want instead of 10 out 10, that helps a lot.

For more information, contact Josh Hale:

internationalsearchpartners.net

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshhale/

joshh@internationalsearchpartners.net

Doug Glenn
Publisher
Heat Treat Today

To find other Heat Treat Radio episodes, go to www.heattreattoday.com/radio and look in the list of Heat Treat Radio episodes listed.

Heat Treat Radio #66: Heat Treat’s Tight Labor Market: Gaining and Maintaining Workers, with Josh Hale Read More »

Heat Treat Radio #65: The Future of Heat Treat, a Conversation with Piotr Zawistowski

October 28, 2021 / FEATURED NEWS, HEAT TREAT RADIO, VACUUM FURNACES NEWS

Heat Treat Today publisher, Doug Glenn, sat down with heat treating specialist, Piotr Zawistowski, the managing director at SECO/VACUUM, to hear what he believes the future of heat treat holds. Karen Gantzer and Bethany Leone from Heat Treat Today also joined the conversation, recorded at the ASM Heat Treat Show 2021. In this episode, you’ll learn why Piotr believes LPC, automation, and predictive maintenance are the future of heat treat and how to get there.

Below, you can watch the video, listen to the podcast by clicking on the audio play button, or read an edited transcript.

HTT · Heat Treat Radio: The Future of Heat Treat, A Conversation with Piotr Zawistowski

The following transcript has been edited for your reading enjoyment.

Bethany Leone (BL): Peter first shared how SECO/WARWICK was on a mission to actualize the future of heat treat.

Piotr Zawistowski (PZ): I think we are on a mission, that is, SECO/WARWICK and I. I think the future of heat treatment will be LPC for carburizing, and gas quenching for quenching instead of oil. I think the future is LPC and hydrogen quenching, to be honest. Right now, most of carburizing is done in a carburizing atmosphere, and most of the quenching, as I know it. I think that everything is moving in the vacuum direction, if you will, but we're not there yet. So, that's our mission, in general.

Members of Heat Treat Today sat down with Piotr Zawistowski, managing director of SECO/VACUUM, at the ASM Heat Treat Show 2021.

I think I showed you a graph with what is the difference in quenching between oil and gas. Right now, with 25 bar quenching, we are on the level of slow oil. To get there, we have to use helium, but it's expensive, it's not economical. We can go to hydrogen, which is the speed of oil and it's everywhere, it's cheap. I think this is the future.

BL: This idea that the future of heat treat will be LPC and gas quenching – specifically with hydrogen – means moving in the vacuum direction, as Peter noted. But how fast will this transition come, especially given safety concerns with the use of hydrogen as a quenchant?

PZ: Exactly, that is the concern right now. I think it will come, but we are far away from it. Anyway, we don't have to go to hydrogen immediately, but I think we should go to nitrogen for now. We have some solutions for that, and on top of that, I think we will go from regular carburizing to LPC. It's not easy for people to switch, so our mission is for us to try to convince people to switch to LPC. We would like to make it as easy as possible for them so that's why—maybe 20 years ago—we thought about starting. Because we had quenching and carburizing, we thought, let's maybe leave quenching the same and start with carburizing. So, we developed vacuum oil quench furnaces just to make it easier so they only have to change one thing at a time. But then, we thought, it's a leap for them anyway because those are different oils and it's a vacuum oil. So, right now, we're introducing a furnace with vacuum carburizing with the regular atmosphere is a quenching chamber in regular oils that all the heat treaters have known for years.

DG: This is the SuperIQ?

PZ: This is the SuperIQ. I don't want to make it commercial, but this is another step. If you look at our wall here, we have six different products and five of them are for carburizing. It starts with Vector. It can have carburizing but it doesn't have to be, but anyway, they all are connected with carburizing. I think the mission is to convince people and to switch, in the industry, from all the messy dangerous, open-fire furnaces to new, clean, better technology.

Piotr sharing SECO/WARWICK vision for the future of heat treating.

BL: As we just heard, these are big transitions. So, if the first step towards heat treat with LPC is for heat treaters to use atmosphere carburizing with oil quench, what are the next steps to move to a fully vacuum-based future?

PZ: Step number two is vacuum oil quench and step number three is vacuum carburizing or LPC and high pressure gas quench. That is the future, in my opinion, and with hydrogen.

BL: As a review, moving to LPC could look like, first, using a traditional vacuum furnace with atmosphere capabilities, then, heat treating with vacuum oil quench, and finally, heat treating with LPC and high pressure gas quench. If such a transition is appealing, it would be good know what the productivity improvements of LPC are. . .

PZ: So, it depends; there are a couple factors. First, we have to take into account what kind of a case that we're talking about. But, in general, I can tell you that the productivity increase should be 50%, or even 100%, or more.

DG: You can double the amount of product through in the same amount of time?

Piotr walks through challenges to overcome to achieve an LPC and hydrogen heat treat future.

PZ: Yes. And, it's just as simple with increasing the temperature, so we are not limited with low pressure carburizing with the temperature, whereas there is a limit that atmosphere carburizing can be done. So, we have a lot of possibilities here.

BL: So, a 50-100% increase in productivity and an increased temperature range comes along with low pressure carburizing, LPC. When considering LPC, there is the question of how traditional specification, which clearly state the necessity of atmosphere carburizing, can be compatible with this newer technology.

PZ: Yes, and those specs are changing.

DG: Is that going to be a hindrance?

PZ: Yes, it is right now, especially in aerospace. The automotive industry, they moved already to LPC, but aerospace we are trying to help to change those specs, and they are changing as we speak. A lot of those specs are still from the '80s, and there was no LPC back then. As you know, in aerospace, it is not easy to change a spec, but this is happening right now, as we speak.

DG: Are you guys involved with changes from Nadcap and all?

PZ: Yes, and we are involved in major aerospace players. We are doing tests for them and we are delivering them LPC furnaces. Some of them are still doing R&D, but this is a first step. With some of them, we are starting to see real production with LPC in aerospace, so we are getting there.

BL: To be sure, integrating the technical creation of specs by bringing heat treaters in touch with key end-users in the industry is necessary to have standards reflect effective heat treating techniques. Aside from standards, is there any resistance to adopting low pressure carburizing?

PZ: I think, people are afraid of what is new: atmospheric carburizing is very simple and it is well known, vacuum carburizing is something different. So, for atmosphere carburizing, it's only to control the potential in the furnace and time of carburizing. In vacuum carburizing, it's not that easy- you have to have a special simulator to create a recipe. People are afraid of it, but they shouldn't be because there is software. We have software that can make that recipe really easy and pretty quick. People are just afraid of something new.

We have it [simulator] to create a recipe for LPC for the purpose of carburizing and we actually provide it. This is our own simulator and we provide it with the equipment so it's very, very easy.

BL: In addition to an aversion to the new and the changes that may be involved, folks have a real concern with distortion. Peter then addressed this concern. . .

PZ: High pressure gas quenching, in general, is better, but there are other methods. It is not only us, but we are all trying to limit the distortions; we cannot say “eliminate” because that is impossible, but we can try to limit the distortion and control the distortions. What we introduced to the market is our 4D quench technology, “fourth” dimension is that we rotate the part during quenching.

BL: While there is resistance that may be from outdated industry specs, a suspicion of the new, or technical concerns which the industry is continually addressing, Peter was sure note that there are, in fact, drivers that are encouraging heat treaters to move towards LPC.

PZ: I think, the driver is both productivity and safety. As an example, the [US] Biden administration just committed to reduce CO2 emission by 50% by the end of the decade. This is good technology and there is a lot of fuel to emission out of atmosphere carburizing, internal and external. But, there will be a push for climate change and CO2 emission. I think, it's not only mandates, but, I think, in Europe, for example, they have a lot of grant; there is a lot of government money you can get if you are reducing the CO2 emission. I think, for the heat treaters, it should be easy to capitalize on it. As I said, no CO2 emission on LPC. There is no emission at all. That is the beauty of the technology.

Kanthal notes the electric shift that is predominantly occurring in Europe

Find this article in the August 2021 digital edition

BL: Certainly, financial incentives to adopt “greener” technologies as well as personal desire to do so would be motivating. Is there anything about the heat treated parts cosmetically that would make LPC attractive?

PZ: Of course. And, you don't have to wash it after, which is great. It depends, as we still can have LPC and oil quench, you have to wash it, but if you can get to the gas quench, you've eliminated the wash part. They just look nice and shiny and bright. The color is better and you can eliminate washing.

BL: It is clear that LPC, one of the factors that plays into the future of heat treat as Peter envisions, has challenges and benefits for heat treaters to consider. Peter then talked about two additional factors for the future of heat treat: automation and predictive maintenance.

PZ: There are two other factors. One is automation, which is something big and it's more and more especially nowadays with the labor issue. But, it is to eliminate the human error part of it. On top of that, it is the traceability of the parts. More and more customers would like no operators and the machine has to run by itself. We have that—a full system of equipment. You just place the basket with parts, or several baskets, and then the robot takes it to the furnace, carburizes, quenches, tempers, washes and then it comes out, completely untouched. Robots are the automated loader. That is the direction.

Another is predictive maintenance, which is a big deal right now. By predictive maintenance, I mean that the system has to predict the failures or the downtimes. A lot of systems, which are available on the market are called “predictive maintenance”, but they are reactive. For example, they have sensors on the machine and if something breaks, it sends you an email message, or whatever. Our SECO/PREDICTIVE, which is our predictive maintenance, is based on an algorithm. The algorithm is written in such a way that the system learns on failures and the more equipment we have connected to it, the more data we have, like everything we have around us right now, all the Googles and Amazons and so on. I think this is the future, as well. So, everything has to be connected to one database to predict what will happen before it happens.

DG: Can you give me an example? Let's say you've got a high temperature fan inside a vacuum furnace. How would the SECO/PREDICTIVE or predictive maintenance work on that?

PZ: I think we would control the vibration on it. I think that's one way to do it. And, at a certain level, it would send a signal – "Watch out! - you are about to have a problem". It is better to do it that way because, then, there is time to order a replacement or schedule something so it will not break. But, the goal is to predict the failure before it happens.

BL: With thoughts of LPC, automation, and predictive maintenance on our minds, we then walked over to a display of various furnaces to see how SECO/VACUUM applied these insights to their own furnaces. Peter began with the Vector, a versatile high pressure gas quench furnace.

PZ: This is a single chamber, multipurpose furnace. It is for LPC carburizing and high pressure gas quenching. This is the main furnace and, I think, 70% of what we sell. Maybe this is, like 50%.

Then 20% are the vacuum oil quench furnaces. The vacuum oil quench furnaces heat processing chambers are the same as the Vector but then we can quench it in oil or we can have three chambers that can be continuous production or you can have oil quench on one side and high pressure gas quench on the other side. We call it CaseMaster Evolution. This is our middle step. As I said, our goal is to go for LPC.

But, then, there is another one, the new baby in the family. [Peter then gestures to, what they call, the Super IQ vacuum furnace.]

For people, it was not easy to make a switch, so this is like a hybrid. The processing chamber is vacuum carburizing but the quenching chamber is like a traditional atmosphere quench. It is like a pure replacement: you can take one out and put this guy in. You have all the benefits from low pressure carburizing but you operate mainly like an old and traditional furnace. This is to make it easier in the transition.

BL: After learning how certain furnace designs can be helpful to heat treaters who have different processing needs or who are trying to convert to LPC, we then moved to see how LPC is being brought to pit-furnace size loads.

PZ: This is another one, another tool in our mission, I would say. This is a pit carburizing furnace but with LPC. Right now, for big, heavy parts, they are carburizing atmosphere in pit furnaces and then they open the furnace and they just transfer it with a crane to an oil tank. This is basically the same, but the pit furnace is with LPC. There is nothing like this on the market right now.

We are trying to bring the LPC advantages to big parts and pit-style carburizers, as well.

BL: From LPC for large loads, we ended our tour with an LPC furnace with an interesting way to maintain traceability.

PZ: This is a single-piece carburizing furnace which we talked about.

So “CaseMaster”, which was the name of our traditional integral quench carburizing furnace in the past, we no longer do. Right now, if we have an RFQ for atmosphere carburizer, we go with LPC.

Thank yous from the group.

Doug Glenn
Publisher
Heat Treat Today

To find other Heat Treat Radio episodes, go to www.heattreattoday.com/radio and look in the list of Heat Treat Radio episodes listed.

Heat Treat Radio #65: The Future of Heat Treat, a Conversation with Piotr Zawistowski Read More »

Letter from the Publisher: Heat Treat Help – Looking Forward to 2022

October 14, 2021 / PUBLISHER'S PAGE

Heat Treat Today publishes eight print magazines a year, and included in each is a letter from the publisher, Doug Glenn. This letter first appeared in Heat Treat Today's September 2021 Trade Show print edition.

Doug Glenn
Publisher and Founder
**Heat Treat** **Today**

We believe people are happier and make better decisions when they are well informed. That’s the mantra that every Heat Treat Today team member knows by heart. These simple words drive pretty much every thing we do.

Be helpful. That’s it. Simple.

As we round the fourth corner and head for the finish line of 2021 – yet another pandemic year (!) – let’s set our sights on 2022 and some new and interesting things that Heat Treat Today will be doing to help you make better decisions.

(1) Our new, big launch in 2022 will be Heat Treat Boot Camp (see the ad on page 22A). This will be a never-before-seen face-to-face event for those who want to get up to speed quickly on the commercial side of the North American heat treat industry. Ideal for new employees or for investors wanting to understand the basics of the marketplace, heat treat industry expert Thomas Wingens and I will spend a day and a half cramming 2+ years’ worth of information into the heads of the attendees. From a 30,000-foot level, we’ll cover the materials, markets, products, processes, and players that make up the North American heat treat market. When attendees leave this seminar, they’ll be way ahead of their peers who have not taken this course. They’ll be happier because they will be well informed and able to make better decisions.

The actual date(s) and location(s) have not been confirmed, but you can check the latest information at www.heattreattoday.com/bootcamp.

(2) Heat Treat Buyer's Guide is another helpful tool that will assist our readers – manufacturers with their own in-house heat treat shop especially in aerospace, automotive, medical, and energy as well as general manufacturing – make better decisions. We launched this industry-leading platform earlier this year (2021) and so far, it has been very successful. If you haven’t seen it, take a minute to visit www.heattreatbuyersguide.com. You’ll love it. And if you’re a supplier to the industry and you are not listed in this valuable resource, please contact me and we’ll get you listed ASAP.

(3) Heat Treat Radio, Heat Treat Consultants, and the ever-popular Heat Treat Daily are three other resources that are constantly helping our readers stay happy by being well informed. You can get to Heat Treat Radio at www.heattreattoday.com/radio. You can check out Heat Treat Consultants at www.heattreattoday.com/consultants. And you can subscribe to our weekday e-newsletter, Heat Treat Daily, by going to www.heattreattoday.com/subscribe. The Consultants Page is especially helpful for those in-house heat treaters who are experiencing heat treat "brain drain". Call one of the consultants listed on this page, and they’ll give you a hand.

(4) And finally, if you want more can’t-miss-resources, check out the list of 39 Top Heat Treat Resources listed in this month’s edition. We’ve gathered some super helpful information from around the industry – information that will make you happy. . . because you’ll be well informed and able to make better decisions.

The most helpful thing we can do is keep you and your people well informed, with “people” being the operative word. People (you) truly are our most valuable asset. Read Ken Gronbach’s column on page 8 for more insights into gaining and maintaining people over the next decade and enjoy learning about the 40 Heat Treat Today’s rising young leaders in the North American heat treat industry – 40 Under 40 Class of 2021 found on pages 32-55.

Here’s to you being well informed and happy. Enjoy this issue.

Letter from the Publisher: Heat Treat Help – Looking Forward to 2022 Read More »

Heat Treat Radio #64: Thermocouple 101 with John Niggle, Pelican Wire (Part 3 of 3)

October 14, 2021 / AEROSPACE HEAT TREAT, AEROSPACE HEAT TREAT TECHNICAL CONTENT, FEATURED NEWS, HEAT TREAT RADIO, INSULATION TECHNICAL CONTENT, MANUFACTURING HEAT TREAT, MANUFACTURING HEAT TREAT TECH, THERMOCOUPLES TECHNICAL CONTENT

Heat Treat Today publisher Doug Glenn wraps up this three-part series with Pelican Wire experts by talking with John Niggle from Pelican Wire about thermocouple insulation types and considerations.

The first two episodes cover the history, types, vocabulary, standards, and other basics of understanding how thermocouples work. Listen to the previous episodes of the series here.

Below, you can either listen to the podcast by clicking on the audio play button, or you can read an edited transcript.

HTT · Heat Treat Radio: Thermocouple 101 with John Niggle, Pelican Wire (Part 3 of 3)

The following transcript has been edited for your reading enjoyment.

Doug Glenn (DG): Welcome to Heat Treat Radio!

John Niggle (JN): Yes, it's good to see you again, Doug. I know we've run into each other a couple of times out there in the field. I'm looking forward to having the opportunity to do all of this stuff in person again.

DG: It will be nice. Before we hit the record button, we were talking about shows this fall and hoping that they happen because you, like I, are ready to get out and go.

You are the business development manager for Pelican Wire. If you don't mind, give us just a little bit of background about you and about your experience in the whole thermocouple world.

JN: Sure, absolutely. As you said, I am the business development manager at Pelican Wire. I've been at Pelican since 2013 so we're working out my eighth year here. I'm a career industrial sales representative. I do have previous experience also, actually, in the process instrumentation industry. Way back when, before I even knew how to spell thermocouples, I was selling that stuff when I first got out of college. My career has, sort of, gone full circle, let's say.

DG: Very nice. Well, you've got plenty of years of experience, which is great. We've had two previous episodes with your colleague, Ed Valykeo, and we covered a good bit of stuff. We covered a lot of basics in the first episode. We covered standardization, and things of that sort, in the second episode. I want to encourage any listeners who haven't listened to those episodes, feel free to go back, Google “Heat Treat Radio” and search for “Pelican Wire” and listen to episodes 1 and 2.

John, you and I want to move forward. I'm always kind of curious about this question: From your perspective, with your experience, why do we use thermocouples? Let's talk about what they are and why we use them.

JN: First of all, we have to assume that somebody is trying to measure the temperature of some sort of a process- a process or an event of some kind. That's basically what they're trying to do. Compared to other devices like RTDs, bimetal thermometers, liquid expansion state change devices and so forth, thermocouples are robust, they're inexpensive; they're repeatability, they're ease of use and size -- all of those factors lead them to be more widely used than another sort of thermal measurement device of any kind. It is the preferred method.

On top of that, I mentioned the expense part. Because they're relatively inexpensive, there are certain industries, the heat treat industry and smelting industry, for example, consider these as, actually, consumable or disposable. So, the cost factors in significantly in the industry that we're talking about here.

DG: I live in western Pennsylvania and the town where my wife grew up, there was an old Leeds and Northrup manufacturing plant. I believe they made the consumable thermocouples for melt shops. You would, basically, throw the thermocouple in and it would melt quickly but it would give you a response during that time.

JN: Right. And, as I mentioned earlier, the response factor is important, or that's one of the factors considered, when people are looking at thermocouple wire. And, you're correct, Ed Valykeo, as you mentioned, has 40 years of experience in the industry and has seen exactly the same sort of thing that you're talking about where people will just tack weld it onto something that gets thrown into a furnace or it gets thrown into a melting pot or something like that, and they're looking for that instantaneous temperature.

If you don't mind, I'll tell you that we've done some work, actually, in the aerospace industry and we had a customer that we sold significant, literally miles, of thermocouple wire to (when I say aerospace, it was specifically for space exploration) and this was because of whatever we had done with the insulation. I can't tell you, because it was before my time, but this is what was relayed to me- they were able to get another 3 - 4 seconds of temperature measurement out of that wire. That critical, extra data for them made all the difference in the world.

DG: We're going to get to the insulation part which should be interesting. You won't have to tell us any trade secrets, but we are headed in that direction anyhow.

So, different types of thermocouples. Again, just a review question for us. Why use them? Why the different types and why are we using different types?

JN: Forgive me, Doug, and the rest of the audience, for that matter, if I end of repeating some of the things that came out in the previous episode. Basically, when you're talking about thermocouples, there are the two chemistries; for lack of a better term, you have “base” and “noble” metals. The base metals are really the metals that we focus on at Pelican. The noble metals are the more expensive ones- rare earth metals, tungsten, titanium, platinum and all those sorts of things that people spend exorbitant amounts of money on. There are purposes for those, but, typically, what you're going to see in the heat treat industry, in particular, you're going to see a lot of the base metals.

I like to say that, truly, the 20 gauge K, in particular, is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. It's almost considered, and I think it would be by people in the industry, a commodity. There are untold miles of that wire that are used in the heat treating and smelting industry. K is used, really, because of the temperature range. It fits in well with what people do in the heat treating industry. It is good for temperatures from zero up to around 1260 C. It's inexpensive, it covers the ranges that those people are looking for, and, again, it's the 800 pound gorilla in the room when it comes to temperature measurement in the heat treating industry.

Click to read the Heat Treat Today Original Content article on thermocouples.

The other types such as J comes up periodically, particularly if you're looking at lower temperature ranges. You won't see it quite as often in the heat treating industry. You will see it somewhat, but not to the degree that you would K. The J thermocouple wire has an iron leg so it does oxidize and you need to be careful about that sort of thing. Type T thermocouple wire has a narrower range. It has very good response times in cryogenic and cold temperature applications. The higher, upper end of type T thermocouple wire, typically, wouldn't be of terrible interest to the audience that we're involved with here, for the most part, because the upper ends around 370 to 400 C degrees, in lab environments; that's where it's going to be the most popular.

There is also type E. It's a higher temperature, as well. Response time. Broader range is a little bit better than K at lower temperature ranges. An interesting one is type N that you will see fairly often in the heat treating industry. For those people not familiar with type N, it is different alloys than type K. It covers virtually the same temperature range that type K does and will, actually, have less drift than type K. It is more expensive because of the alloys that it is made of, but, again, if you're interested in less drift, then type N is worth looking at. It hasn't quite caught on in the US the way it has in, say, Europe, in particular, and that really has to do with the infrastructure of the instrumentation. People have instrumentation that is either calibrated for K or J or something like that. Now, there is instrumentation out there, now, that would use K and N both, so we may see more, particularly, in the aerospace industry I would think it would become more and more popular.

DG: That's helpful. It's always good to hear those things over again.

How about the parameters and/or the factors that need to be considered when you're constructing the wire to start with? What do we need to be worried about in that area?

JN: I don't know if I like the word “worried” exactly, Doug. It's more, what do we need to think about? What do we need to be concerned about? Besides the metallurgy that we just talked about, we need to think in terms of what the sensor is actually going to look like. Is it just the wire? Thermocouple wire, by itself, can be a thermocouple; that's it, without any protection or anything like that.

As I mentioned earlier, you can tack weld it to an ingot, or something like that, and there you go. You don't have any probe, there is no thermal well to protect it or anything like that. But, what we do need to think about, then, is the process that it's going to be involved in. Where is it going to be used? Is it going to see an environment where there is a flow. Is it going to see an environment where somehow the thermocouple wire can become damaged? In that case, then, we're headed in the direction of talking about what our customers are interested in. And for a customer for Pelican Wire, we're mainly talking about people who actually assemble thermocouples – they make the connections, they have the molds and all that sort of thing.

To be clear, Pelican Wire just makes wire. And, again, the thermocouple wire can be used as a thermocouple, but a tremendous amount of wire is actually connected to some sort of a sensor or a probe, as I said, and is protected in a thermal well or something along those lines.

"But, what we do need to think about, then, is the process that it's going to be involved in. Where is it going to be used? Is it going to see an environment where there is a flow. Is it going to see an environment where somehow the thermocouple wire can become damaged? In that case, then, we're headed in the direction of talking about what our customers are interested in."

John Niggle

DG: Do we also have to be concerned with oxidizing, carburizing atmospheres, corrosive atmospheres? Is that, also, something that we need to be aware of?

JN: Absolutely. And that is one of the reasons you will see a probe thermocouple is because the wire is protected from that atmosphere. Nearly all of the wires that we talked about would be affected, particularly, in say, like a sulfurous environment; it would be subject to corrosion, oxidation and something along those lines.

Other factors, of course, are the accuracy and how much space we have. Believe it or not, if it's going to go into a small orifice, then we need to think about what the age size is going to look like. And then the environment: Is it going to be abrasive? Is there movement? Is there some sort of braiding motion that could wear a hole in the wire in the insulation and so forth? There are a lot of things to think about.

DG: And, it would probably be a good idea, especially if our heat treat people are running anything outside of the norm, regardless of what it is, whether it be atmosphere, configuration, fixturing, if there is anything outside the norm, they would probably be wise to mention it to the thermocouple wire and/or thermocouple probe manufacturer and make sure that they know so that you guys can get help get the right thing on there in their furnace.

JN: Yes, absolutely. At the end of the day, we work with this every day. We have design engineers on staff who can assist with technical questions and so forth and, of course, our customers, and the actual thermal wire assembly people, this is what they do every day of the week.

“I'll tell you that we've done some work, actually, in the aerospace industry and we had a customer that we sold significant, literally miles, of thermocouple wire to (when I say aerospace, it was specifically for space exploration) and this was because of whatever we had done with the insulation.”

DG: Let's talk about something a little bit new, I guess, to our conversation here in this 3-part series, and that is the insulation that's going to go around these wires. Can you tell us what are the different types of insulations and what are the advantages and/or disadvantages of each, and why would we be using them?

JN: I'll break it down into, what I would call, the four basic categories. That would be an extruded insulation, insulations that are tapes, fiberglass insulations that are routinely worked with and then, of course, high temp textiles. High temp textiles, in particular, would be of interest to the audience here in the heat treat metallurgy world.

Extruded insulations can be a variety of thermoplastics. A term that, I think, Ed has probably mentioned before and we've talked about before is extension grade wire. That typically has a PVC insulation on it and the reason PVC works for that is that it's cheap and extension grade wire, typically, does not see the sorts of high temp environments that you're going to see in processes. It's really a signal wire that takes the signal from the probe or from the sensor to the process control device.

DG: So what kind of temperature tolerances can the extruded wire handle? Are we talking 300, 400 degrees? I guess you talk C, I talk F.

JN: We talk whatever language our customer likes to talk, but we do talk C quite a bit. So, PVC is quite low, it's in the 200s F. But, when you're looking at fluoropolymer insulations (and Pelican is really a high temp house, so we focus on the higher temp insulations) you have FEP and PFA, those are in the 200s. PFA actually goes up to 260. So, you can see, it's probably not suitable for heat treating applications, smelting and that sort of thing. The advantages to those compounds would be that you're going to have abrasion resistance. Think about your Teflon frying pan: it's slick, it's smooth. So, if you're in an environment where there is some movement, it will be good for that. And, of course, it will have excellent moisture resistance and chemical resistance. Those would be the advantages to the extruded wire. The other advantage would be, because you'll have a thinner wall than you will with the other insulations, you'll have some more flexibility. So, if you have a type N radius, you can go around a corner easily.

The next step up, in terms of temperature resistance, would be the tapes. Basically, in that area, you're looking at PTFE tape, mica take and capped-on tape or polyamide tape. Those will give you slightly higher heat resistances. The mica, in particular, would give you more. (Mica, as a matter of fact, is used as a supplement to the PTFE to give it even higher heat resistance.) Mica will go up to 500 C, PTFE and the polyamides match, in terms of heat resistance, the extruder products around 260. What they do give you, again if you use the tapes, is the heat resistance you're looking for, some abrasion resistance and the moisture resistance. You'll have less flexibility because those products are stiffer, but they're also going to be a little bit lighter weight unless you incorporate the mica into it. Then, when you do that, you're going to end up with an even stiffer wire and it will be a little bit heavier, and all those will be larger in diameter than an extruded wire. If you look at an environment where you need to poke the wire through a hole and that hole is an eighth of an inch, you need to think really hard if what you're doing is going to work.

DG: So you've got extruded and you've got tapes.

JN: The next step after that would be fiberglass. In the case of fiberglass, you have E glass and S glass. Of the two, E glass would have the lower temperature resistance and you're looking at 482 C on the high end. For S glass, you're up to 704 C. Now you're starting to talk about insulations that you will see in the heat treat environment; it's quite common, especially on the S glass side where you're looking at the 704, you'll see a lot of people that need 500 C for whatever reason. The advantage, obviously, to the glass, as I mentioned, is the higher heat resistance.

There are disadvantages. Think about fiberglass for a minute. We actually have to saturate the wire to keep it from fraying without it ever really experiencing any abuse. If we don't saturate it, then the wire can fray, and you can get fiberglass in your fingers even, which is unpleasant. So, fiberglass has some disadvantages like that. If you put it in an environment where there is some movement, abrasion, vibration or something like that, it can be problematic. Also, it's going to be stiffer because it's saturated, typically. Sometimes you'll even see those saturants even cause problems in a heat treat environment where, if it gets too hot, the saturant can leave an ash behind. You're going to lose flexibility, as I said. You're not going to have the abrasion resistance, the chemical resistance or the moisture resistance that you're going to get from an extruded product.

The other one that we see, again, literally miles and miles and miles of, in the heat treat world would be what's called Refrosil and Nextel, (those are both, actually, trade names). We're talking about vitreous silica and ceramic. Again, those are, what we call, high temp textiles. Now, you're looking at products that are in the 1200 C range. Ceramic goes up to 1204, vitreous silica is in the 870's. Again, there are some of the same disadvantages with those that you're going to have with glass. It's going to be somewhat fragile. We don't saturate those because the saturants are not going to hold up in the environments that they're going to be placed into, so you would have that ash residue left.

Again, it will be stiff, it will be even larger in diameter than the fiberglass, which is larger than tape which is larger than the extruder products. Of course, you're not going to have the abrasion resistance, the moisture resistance or the chemical resistance. But it does protect the wire in those elevated temperature environments that are critical for the heat treating industry.

DG: Let's back up a bit. I want to understand something you said. You said, in the fiberglass, it is saturated and in the textiles it's not. I want to know what you mean by saturated.

JN: It's either a solvent-based or a water-based saturant that is applied to the wire to protect it. Think in terms of a varnish. It would be like a protective coating. Again, it just keeps the exterior of the wire, the bare wire, from being exposed. It's a coating, but we call it a saturant.

DG: High temperature textiles tend to be the stuff we're using, in the heat treat industry, probably most.

JN: Yes. Again, when I mentioned the 800 pound gorilla in the room, the 20-gauge K with the vitreous silica or the Refrosil would be an extremely popular product in the heat treating industry, absolutely.

DG: Let me ask you a very, very fundamental question. I'm curious of your answer to this. Why do we insulate wires at all? Is it done to protect from temperature or is it done simply to protect them from crossing with each other and grounding or shorting out? Why do we insulate?

"I'll go back to something that I know Ed talked about: the Seebeck effect. You have this loop; if you don't have that loop, then you don't have anything. You don't have the EMF, the electromotive force, that you're looking for."

John Niggle

JN: It is the second part. When you look at any wire construction, the two singles have to be insulated from each other. I'll go back to something that I know Ed talked about: the Seebeck effect. You have this loop; if you don't have that loop, then you don't have anything. You don't have the EMF, the electromotive force, that you're looking for. We do make a wire that is not duplex, but, typically, what you're going to see is a wire that has two singles and then it's duplexed with an insulation over the top. We do make a wire that the two singles are jacketed in parallel and then no jacket is placed over the top but that is for an application that wouldn't be suitable for the heat treat industry.

DG: I asked that question, because for those who are unbaptized in this conversation, it's kind of interesting. So, we're talking about insulation and we're doing a lot of conversation about temperature ranges and, for someone who wouldn't think so, they would say, "Well, that means you're insulating because of temperature." But, really, the reason you're insulating wire is for electrical. It's to keep them apart. It's just how high of temperatures those insulations can handle, not that you're insulating the wire to keep them cool. Right?

JN: Absolutely not.

DG: That may sound very basic, but there may be people that think that, so I want to get that on the table.

JN: Most of the people in the audience are probably familiar with this already. Typically, what happens is the wire is stripped so we have exposed ends. And then those ends, as we mentioned earlier, can be tack welded onto something or they can just be out there. The thermocouple world, by the way, is an incestuous world where we have customers, we kind of compete with those customers, some of our customers compete with others of our customers but then they buy supplies from each other. You probably already know that from talking with other people in this industry. At any rate, the wire is stripped and then it's either tack welded or it's connected to some sort of sensor or probe of some kind.

DG: It's a tangled web, the whole thermocouple world. You've got customers, yet you sell to certain suppliers who also sell to those customers. It can be complicated! But that's OK, we'll let you guys worry about that; we just want to make sure the thermocouples are good and we'll be in good shape.

Another question for you: We talked about the process and a lot of different environments about what type of thermocouple you should use, but does the process being monitored influence the type of insulation that should be used? Obviously, temperature is going to have an impact, but is there anything else?

JN: Yes. Let's circle back to what we talked about earlier just a little bit. When you look at the process, you need to think of what is going to happen to that wire? Is it going to see, first of all as you mentioned, the temperatures? That is certainly important so that comes into play with the insulation. But, we need to think about, Is there movement? Is there going to be some abrasion? Is there some sort of activity that could damage the wire somehow? Then, we need to look at the chemicals, like we talked about. Do we need some chemical resistance? Do we need water resistance? Is it going to be submersed in something? Those things all need to be considered.

Again, as I mentioned earlier, the actual placement of the wire. Does it need to be inserted in a hole? At Pelican, we produce wire down to 40 and actually 44 gauge which, I think, will probably be stunning to most of the people in your audience because, again, 20-gauge K is what these people think about. In the heat treating industry, what you see is they need a robust wire, something that's going to be able to handle those temperatures and a large conductor like that.

Another thing to think about, actually, is a bend radius. Are you going to put the wire somewhere where it needs to go around a corner, around a bend? Then, are you better off using a stranded wire? A stranded wire is going to have more flexibility. You can buy a 20-gauge stranded wire, you can buy 24-gauge, 28-gauge, 36-gauge.

DG: Now, what do you mean by stranded?

JN: Stranded wire would be instead of just one solid 20-gauge conductor, you have multiple strands that make up that 20-gauge. But, if you think about it, multiple strands of wire will actually be more flexible. You'll still get the same results, but it will be more flexible if you need to go around a corner or if you need to insert it into something.

DG: It's almost like a braided wire as opposed to a solid.

JN: Yes. Now braiding is a little bit of a different process. When we're talking about stranded wire, it's, basically, just spiral. Braided is more crossed into each other, which, coincidentally, is the way that the fiberglass and the high temp textile insulations are made – those are actually braided. And, by the way, I'll just toss this out, it's made on equipment that really hasn't changed since the ‘20s. I'm not talking about the 2020s, I'm talking about the 1920s! Rumor has it, some of that braiding equipment was, actually, designed by Thomas Edison. I'm not sure if that's really true. But that is the process used to apply the fiberglass and high temp textiles.

DG: So, anything else as far as any other considerations we need to take into consideration when we're talking about choosing insulation? If not, that's fine.

JN: I think I covered them, Doug.

DG: At Pelican Wire, your company, I know you guys deal with a broad number of markets, I'm sure, one of them being heat treat. What do you see as any special demands or special concerns that are, maybe, unique or, at least, inherent in the heat treat market?

". . . what you see is insulations that are higher in temperature resistance, as well. In some cases, as I mentioned earlier, in ovens where there is a saturant involved, we could see ash. Some people ask that saturant not be applied to the fiberglass and that's certainly something that can be done."

John Niggle

JN: For the heat treat market, again, I'll go back to what I said earlier, we see a lot of 20-gauge K used. It's because of the higher heat requirements, the higher heat that is involved with the processes of heat treating. Secondly, what you see is insulations that are higher in temperature resistance, as well. In some cases, as I mentioned earlier, in ovens where there is a saturant involved, we could see ash. Some people ask that saturant not be applied to the fiberglass and that's certainly something that can be done.

Sometimes we're even asked to not put tracers. We go back to what we talked about earlier with the metallurgy- you have two legs, a positive and a negative leg. Well, how do those end users tell those legs apart if they look similar, if they're an alloy of some kind? So, we put a tracer wire in there so you have a red leg and a yellow leg, in the case of type K, or sometimes you just have a red leg depending on what they ask for. Those tracers can, actually, cause problems, too, if the ovens are hot enough and they are in there for long enough times. We even have customers who ask us not to put tracers in their wire, for that matter.

Accuracy, of course, is extremely important. I know that Ed, in a previous episode, talked about standard limits, special limits and all that sort of thing. Typically, you're going to see special limits used in the heat treat industry and, in some cases, we're asked even for special calibration points. In previous podcasts, I've heard you talk with other people about AMS2750 and how that comes into play. It is extremely critical for the folks in the heat treating industry and something that clearly a thermocouple wire producer has to understand.

DG: Let's say you've got a customer that calls you and wants to talk about their thermocouple needs, let's say there is some sort of special need. What would you suggest they have, in hand, when they call you? What do you need to know from them to help you do a better job with their thermocouple needs?

JN: Honestly, the first question we do ask is: What temperature are you going to be running this at? How hot are we going to be? We, absolutely, need to know that. That helps us narrow down the alloy that we might be looking at, whether it's type K, type J, type E, or whatever. And then, of course, it's a natural thing to dial in the insulation after that. Quite honestly, one of the things that frustrates me is when people say, "I need Teflon." Well, OK. Do you need FEP or do you need PFA? Those are both fluoropolymers like Teflon is. We need to talk about temperature resistance, so don't tell me you just need Teflon. We do need some specifics when it comes to that sort of thing. Again, we talked earlier about stranding and stranded wire. Do you need some flexibility? What gauge size do you think you need? How robust does this wire need to be? Those are some of the key factors we need to know about.

DG: Let's say, for example, somebody does want to get a hold of you or Ed, your colleague who was on the first two episodes, how is best to do that? How can we get a hold of Pelican Wire?

JN: Our web address is www.pelicanwire.com, about a simple as it possibly gets. Our email addresses are, actually, quite simple, as well. If anybody wants to email me, it's jniggle@pelicanwire.com. You can contact me directly, if you want to, or we have a sales inbox and that is simply sales@pelicanwire.com. We do have a phone number, but it seems a lot of people don't care about phone numbers as much these days. But the number is 239-597-8555.

DG: I have one, unrelated, question for you that I know the world is wanting to know: How is it having a company in Naples, Florida, that's what I want to know?

JN: I'll tell you what, Doug, the answer today will be different than the answer in October or December. It's actually quite nice. We moved down here 8 years ago in 2013. I moved from the Midwest and didn't really feature myself owning palm trees, but I own palm trees, which is pretty darn cool. We are, as the crow flies, about 3 miles from the water, where I live anyhow, 20 minutes by car. Our office and manufacturing facility are, actually, on the very edge of the everglades. You can see the picture in the background behind me. That's our building. That's actually facing east. That is a sunrise over the everglades. We're on the very edge of the everglades. There is a lake right next to our building and then, after that, it's everglades all the way over to Miami. And, real quick, our weather pattern comes from the east. It doesn't come from the Gulf. This time of year, in the summer at about 3:00 in the afternoon, about the time that we're doing this call right now, a thunderstorm blows up and it comes from the east over the everglades and it moves to the west. The trees blow that direction, you can see it coming. It's interesting. During the wintertime, I have to tell everyone, you'd probably be jealous, but it is truly paradise.

DG: Yes! I've been to Naples, ate at a nice restaurant down there, years ago, but it was very nice.

You guys are also employee-owned, right?

JN: That's correct, yes. The company is over 50 years old. The founder of the company passed away in 2008 and, before he passed away, he converted the company to an employee-owned operation. So, we've been employee-owned since 2008. We've purchased a couple other companies since then that folded into, what we call, the Wire Experts Group. Pelican Wire is part of that. We have a sister company out in Colorado. We bought another facility in Chicago and folded that into our company in Colorado. So, yes, we're employee-owned and it works out really well for the employee owners, I'll tell you that much.

DG: That's great. John, it's been a pleasure talking with you. Thanks for taking the time. I appreciate your expertise. Hopefully, we will see you out on the pavement somewhere in the real world.

JN: I'll, actually, be seeing you at the heat treat show in about 3 weeks.

DG: That's about right, yes.

JN: Hopefully, some of the people that are listening we will see, as well.

Doug Glenn <br> Publisher <br> Heat Treat Today

Doug Glenn
Publisher
Heat Treat Today

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