We will start off with some people news, in this case Mr. Greg Huss who within the past month became a plant Manager at Paulo Heat Treating, Brazing and Metal Finishing. Greg worked for many years at Hudapack Metal Treating in Wisconsin, USA which was cofounded by his father Gary Huss. Hudapack was acquired by Thermal Process Holdings back in 2018 as you can see in the press release below. Incidentally both Paulo and Thermal Process Holdings are included on our list of the 30 largest commercial heat treaters in North America https://themonty.com/project/largest-north-american-commercial-heat-treats-august-2020/  “November 28, 2018 – Thermal Process Holdings, Inc. (“TPH”) is pleased to announce its acquisition of Hudapack Metal Treating, Inc. (“Hudapack”), which owns and operates heat treat facilities in Elkhorn and Franklin Wisconsin.  Hudapack, co-founded by Gary Huss, Charles Davis, and Earl Pack, represents the third investment in our strategy to build a leading thermal processing company focused on value-added services.” 

There are few companies in the worldwide heat treatment industry, be they industry suppliers, captive heat treaters or commercial heat treaters who can say that business is good for them in 2020, however we ran across one supplier who is having a great year. ECM USA in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, USA is a division of ECM of Grenoble, France and a supplier of furnaces, in particular vacuum carburizing furnaces and they are having a good year with a number of new orders and a very high level of quoting. The photo below was taken in 2018 during an open house the company had and in this picture we see from the left; Laurent Pelissier (President), Yvan Trouillot and Dennis Beauchesne.

Our good friend Pete Batche of Emerald Steel Processing in Michigan asked if we could mention that the 4^th edition of CQI-9 is finally complete and can be ordered anytime at https://www.aiag.org/ Since 2005 the heat treating standard for automotive components has been CQI-9 which covers most aspects of the heat treating process and one of the individuals who wrote the original specs is none other than Pete Batche. For his contributions he earned a place on our list of the 25 most influential people in the North American heat treating industry https://themonty.com/project/25-most-influential-people-in-the-north-american-heat-treating-industry/ One of the largest commercial heat treaters in North America, FPM suffered a fire last week. Through good organization and hard work the plant was back in operation the very next day; “CHERRY VALLEY, Ill. (WTVO)–The Boone County Fire Protection District #2 responded to a structure fire at a heating plant on Wednesday, June 24. Firefighters were called in just before midnight at FPM Heat Treating, located at 648 on U.S. Route 20, and discovered insulation burning below the roof decking. With the mutual aid of several other fire departments, crews were able to make sure the fire didn’t hamper production. While the fire caused $50,000 in damages, the plant was able to still open Thursday morning.”

Recently we mentioned a brand new start up commercial heat treater in Northern Ontario, Canada by the name of Salto Heat Treating Inc. The person mainly responsible for this is a fellow by the name of Chris Meheena and he can be seen in this photo.

This week we are looking forward to a press release from Italian furnace builder Meapforni about a nice order they have just received. While we await the press release we will share this photo taken at the Meapforni facilty last year which shows part of the Meapforni team along with a number of individuals from Japanese furnace builder Dowa.

To round things out for what will be a very quiet week due to holidays in North America we have this picture which dates back to 2004. The company name was Nitrion, it was based in Munich, Germany and specialized in plasma nitriding. “The Monty” worked closely with the owner who was looking to sell and the end result is that is has long been part of the Bodycote organization.