We are very pleased to be speaking with Mr. Matt Clinite, Sales Director of furnace builder Ipsen-we start off with this background; 

Matt Clinite joined Ipsen in the summer of 2014 as a sales engineer, quickly moving into the Midwest Territory sales manager role in 2015. In 2019, he was promoted to Ipsen Customer Service (ICS) Sales Manager and recognized in Heat Treat Today’s “40 Under 40” class. Clinite was promoted again to Director of ICS Sales and Retrofits in 2023 and advanced to his current role in 2025, after consistently demonstrating his passion for heat treating and dedication to outstanding customer service. Clinite is also a lead instructor for Ipsen U, Ipsen’s comprehensive training on vacuum furnace technology. His extensive knowledge of vacuum furnaces comes from years of experience with hot zone rebuilds and furnace retrofits. Clinite holds a bachelor’s degrees in business administration and Spanish from Illinois State University and is a 2018 graduate of the Metal Treating Institute YES Management Training Program.

Matt that very impressive background we just read came from part of the “Ipsen Team” in Rockford, Illinois who helped arrange this interview-what would you like to add to that summary?

Gord, I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to work in many different areas of our business. Moving through the organization in different capacities has allowed me to gain a deep understanding of our vacuum furnaces. I have enjoyed my time spent on the new furnace side of our business, as well as the aftermarket side. I’ve also been able to collaborate with our Ipsen Germany partners on several exciting atmosphere furnace projects over the years.  All of these experiences have been invaluable, and I have enjoyed ever minute of it.

Every time we cross paths, it sounds like you have just flown in from another city to visit a customer or two. You must be tallying up some serious air miles. Do you have any idea how many customers you’ve visited over the years?

I always enjoy visiting regions with companies that are new to heat-treating. Since joining Ipsen, I have toured 456 unique heat treat departments which operated vacuum furnaces – more if you include atmosphere heat treat departments. Beyond that I have been able to work with many more vacuum furnace end users through our sales interactions (domestically and internationally) and been able to host a large number of vacuum furnaces users at Ipsen U over the years.

I gather your current title is “Sales Director” what does this position entail? Along the same lines what is the “Ipsen” sales model in North America? I know you use a combination of direct salespeople and also independent reps-how did this scenario evolve? 

As Sales Director I oversee our outside sales team, which is made up of Regional Sales Owners (RSOs) and Regional Sales Engineers (RSEs). We feel at Ipsen that we have the largest and most experienced sales team in the industry. Ipsen has 10 RSOs and 5 RSEs serving our North American customers (and many more globally). 

Many of our RSOs have come up from within the company, having previously worked in sales, engineering, or product leader capacities. Generally, our RSOs can choose to be either a direct employee, or a manufacturer’s representative. Manufacturer’s representatives can carry product lines that are complementary to the products Ipsen has to offer, like alloy fixtures as an example. Many of our manufacturer’s representatives worked directly for Ipsen during their careers. It is noteworthy that eight of our RSOs have 15 years experience or more with vacuum furnaces.  

Our RSE team members come from a variety of engineering and technical backgrounds and support our customers with all our aftermarket offerings – including parts, field service, hot zones and retrofits.

It comes across loud and clear that you are very passionate about your job-what is it that drives you or perhaps I should ask what it is that you like so much about what you are doing?

It’s about the people Gord. I am driven by an intrinsic need to help our customers and the lifelong relationships that come with that. It is rewarding to see high uptime, well maintained vacuum furnace departments, and know that I played a part in that success. Our customers know we are here to provide the right furnace for their application, and that we will service it well until end of life. This trust has led to making some great friends throughout the industry. It is the accomplishments we shared together that I feel most proud of.

Let’s split this next question into two parts: the first is where you see the industry going, the second is where Ipsen in particular is going. So for the first part I will ask you this; what are you seeing in the market as far as demand goes? More specialized, custom furnaces? More “standard” off the shelf furnaces (presumably cheaper)? Larger? Smaller?

There are a few interesting trends we are observing in the industry. The first is a huge demand by captive shops for highly customized, highly engineered furnace solutions. There are a lot of manufacturers out there pushing the limits of what has been historically possible, and this is one area Ipsen really excels. 

The next trend is the outsourcing of skilled trades and a huge surge in demand for skilled service technicians. This is in line with what we hear from our customers, suppliers, and other partners. Talented people have retired, and employee turnover is higher, leading to less tenured and less experienced people. 

Ipsen has seen a huge opportunity here and has re-envisioned our field service team into the HUB model to better serve our customers.  The HUB model concentrates clusters of Ipsen Service Engineers in areas where we have a high density of customers, allowing those Ipsen customers to experience a quick turnaround and see familiar faces whenever they call for Ipsen Service.

Besides the specials, there is also a steady demand for standard, off the shelf furnaces like our TITAN product line, and we continue to modernize and update our standard furnace offerings. The TITAN continues to be an industry favorite, with nearly 400 sold to date. With many of our customers having less tenured, less experienced staff, we have seen a demand to make our furnaces smarter, with additional built-in decision-making capabilities, which in turn makes the furnaces easier to run and maintain.  

Contrary to some of the talk we have heard in the industry, we have not noticed an increased demand for small furnaces. 

And for part two of this question; what is Ipsen doing to meet these changing industry demands?

Specific to the demand for “specials,” we are fortunate to have a very experienced engineering & design team, many of whom have a lot of years ahead of them. Our staff listen to customers and let them help lead our innovations. Then we work to continually refine the product lineup with new advancements.

Ipsen is always improving our furnaces. What’s been driving our innovations now has been reflecting on two main questions that will lead to future advancements: 1. What do our customers want to see in a next generation control system? 2. What does the vacuum furnace of the future look like 5, 10 or even 20 years from now? By the way Gord, we would love to hear feedback from your readers on these two questions!

This question relates back to number three on this list and the number of vacuum furnace installs you have seen over the years; what are the one or two most interesting installations you have seen? I am not going to ask you for customer names, I am not even going to ask you about a particular industry-I am asking what installs you found most interesting either because of size, complexity or even location. 

My favorite installation (in terms of most impressive) is what we would argue to be the largest known vacuum furnace (by volume) in the world, boasting a chamber that is about 50’ long x 20’ diameter and a hearth capacity over 200,000 lbs. This furnace sits next to several other large Ipsen provided furnaces and is truly impressive to behold. Certainly there are many other noteworthy installations, but two more that come to mind are a vertical furnace that has a work area that accommodates parts up to 26 feet tall, and another large vertical furnace that had 1200 hp of cooling capacity. The latter, when it vents, sounds like the roar of the crowd at a NASCAR race, producing gusts of wind that would impress a meteorologist.

Challenges-we have lots of challenges in the industry these days although personally I believe that there are always lots of challenges no matter what the time period. What would you sum up as the main ones these days-I will throw out a few suggestions. An aging workforce in North America? Environmental concerns such as energy usage and emission? Tariffs? Foreign competition?

That’s a great question. I would say the aging workforce, and lower job tenure is the biggest challenge facing almost every business. It is driving businesses towards more automation and smarter machines, to be less reliant on people and tribal knowledge.

To answer your other topics: Ipsen is not totally immune from tariffs (things like electronics and vacuum pumps are almost exclusively manufactured overseas) but we are reasonably well insulated, as our primary vendors are nearly all stateside. Our moly supply chain even starts with mining operations right here in the USA (Colorado, to be exact). Because vacuum furnaces heat with electricity, emissions and carbon footprint concerns are negligible (depending on electric source). Regarding international competition, prospective furnace buyers are nervous that tariffs could reappear in a dramatic way, at any time. With that in mind we see many prospective customers weighing domestic manufacturing as a significant decision metric when comparing vacuum furnace OEMs.  

You hinted to me in a previous conversation that you are going to be rolling out a new product at the upcoming ASM heat treat exhibition in Detroit, October of this year. Are you going to elaborate on this hint or keep myself and our readers “hanging” for another few months? 

Gord, I will have to keep you waiting for a little longer (though maybe not all the way until the trade show). We are collaborating with more than a dozen of our customers during the development phase, to make sure our release hits the mark. As soon as we are ready for a release your readers will be the first to hear about it!