This episode of Dusty Jobs Podcast features our guest Congressman Mike Kelly. The Congressman shares his recent experience having the Corona Virus. He also talks about how he came into politics and his views on the current political climate. We also discuss American manufacturing and the importance of bringing back industry and what the future might bring.
If you have any suggestions for the podcast please feel free to email us at dustyjobspodcast@isystemsweb.com
Dusty Jobs Podcast Episode 8 – Business & Politics with Congressman Mike Kelly
Narrator: Welcome to the Dusty Jobs Podcast from Imperial Systems. Industry knowledge to make your job easier and safer.
Donovan: Once again, thanks for joining us on the Dusty Jobs Podcast. We’re doing our special made in America edition. Joining us today is Congressman Mike Kelly of the Pennsylvania 16th district. Thanks for coming on today.
Congressman Kelly: Thank you. It’s good to be here. I’ve never been on a Dusty Jobs Podcast before, but being at Imperial, I’ve been here before. This is great. Glad to be here with you.
Donovan: Yeah, well we’re super excited to have you on. Mike, just tell us a little bit about yourself if you don’t mind. Maybe how you got started into politics. You’re in our district here so we just want to hear about you.
Congressman Kelly: Yeah, getting involved in politics for me really came out of a situation where in the Obama administration where General Motors had had some problems and they went to the government for assistance and they got assistance, but then part of the back part of that was then the government started to say, “Well, you’re going to have to get rid of certain dealerships, and certain people are not going to be allowed to be in business anymore.” One of the stores we have, we’re a Chevrolet Cadillac dealer…
Donovan: Because that’s your history, right? You’ve been in the car business fo ra long time.
Congressman Kelly: My mother and dad started our business in 1953. Both of them worked at a Chevrolet warehouse in Pittsburgh pre-World War II. My dad went off to the war, came back home, and back to work for Chevrolet. He was on the road for Chevrolet and in 1953 he got his first dealership in a little town called Verona in west Pittsburgh. So, you know, we got back a long way into that. In fact, if you looked at my family history the Kelly side, my grandfather Kelly was a conductor on the B&O Railroad. My grandfather on the other side of the aisle was in the fruit business. His name was McTighe (?). The other half of the Kelly combination was my grandmother, Mary Simulsburger (?), and they were in the livery business. My dad would alway say when I would say, “How did we ever get into the car business?” He’d say, “You know what, your Grandpa Simulsburger was in the livery business.” And maybe it was kind of a takeover from that, and we just kind of rolled, as it would be, into this business. So, my dad worked for Chevrolet from after the war until ’53. He got a chance to get his first dealership. He got a little one car showroom, about four service bays, and they would work seven days a week. At that time, we would stick the card – not me, I was just a child at the time. I was five years old. I used to go down to the railroad siding with my dad and he would take these cars off the train, he’d take them home in our basement. Back then you had to service the car to get it ready before you could sell it. He would do that work in our basement. The big thing then, the option, because pretty much the cars were standard, but he was good at sewing seat covers. So one of the accessories that they would sell to customers were seat covers, and my dad would make those seat covers.
Donovan: A little upgrade.
Congressman Kelly: Yes. So that’s how we get started. Moved to Butler in 1957.
Donovan: That is a great American history story right there.
Congressman Kelly: It really is, but it’s not uncommon.
Donovan: Right.
Congressman Kelly: So whenever you talk to people. When you say, “How does your family get into this business or that business?” A lot of it was just generational. Although for my dad it was different. He was the first one in his family. My grandfather Kelly was upset with him. My dad told him “You know what Pop, I have a chance to become a Chevrolet dealer, and I’m going to become a Chevrolet dealer.”
And my grandfather Kelly said, “My God George, what is wrong with you? You’re the first Kelly to ever wear a white shirt to work. They even give you a car to drive for nothing. Are you out of your mind?”
And my dad said, “You know what Pop? Look, its just that I’m kind of in the business I’m in now, I can’t determine my own future. If I’m in business for myself I can. So if I’m going to work hard I want to work hard for myself and for my family.” And that’s how we get in the business. So in ’57 we moved from Pittsburgh up to Butler. Chevrolet Cadillac Agency on Main Street in Butler. In 1997, as it were, then I bought the dealership from my father.
Donovan: Oh, okay.
Congressman Kelly: So, I became the dealer operator, owner operator in Butler. Then in 2001 I had the opportunity to pick up a Hyundai franchise, bought the Hyundai franchise, incorporated it on our dealership lot, and then in 2003 or 04 I got the Kia dealership. So we’re on a ten acre site that is actually the front corner of our farm.
Donovan: Oh, I got you.
Congressman Kelly: We’ve added on and added on, and it’s been an interesting run. It’s been good for the most part, but you have those days where you say, “Oh gosh, I don’t know how I’m going to get through this.” We go through good business cycles and bad business cycles. Surviving is the key and I think any of us that are in business know that you learn from your mistakes. Surviving near death situations really makes you smarter for the next time and you’re very cautious and I think you’re forced to be conservative in your thinking, and I think you required to be because everything is on the line everyday.
Donovan: Not just for you but for the people you’re taking care of, your employees. I think that’s a great story. So fast forward. You’re owning the dealerships now. You get to the point where the government is starting to interfere? Trying to tell you what to do?
Congressman Kelly: They took one of the franchises away. I got a letter, a twenty-eight page letter. The letter is kind of boiler plate until you get to the last paragraph. It says “Sign the release form included with this communication and you’ll no longer be a Cadillac dealer or you can go and fight this and say I want to go to arbitration.” So I got a call from General Motors and the zone manager said, “Listen, we sent you a communication.”
And I said, “Yeah, it’s twenty-eight pages.”
And he goes, “What did you think of it?”
And I said, “You must be kidding me. You don’t really want to know my answer.” I said, “I will tell you this. I’m going to arbitration.”
The guy on the other end of the line started laughing. He said, “You? Mike Kelly? In little Butler, Pennsylvania are going to go into battle against the US government? You can’t possibly win.”
I said, “Well, you know what? I don’t know about that. One thing I do know is that if I don’t go into the fight I for sure can’t win, but I’m not going to back away from this. It has taken a long time since 1953 to get to this point. I bought this business from my father. I didn’t inherit it. He didn’t give it to me. I bought it from him. I’ve got a big mortgage to pay. I’m going to fight you guys tooth and nail to try to keep the franchise.” And you know what? We actually got arbitration and we win.
Donovan: Nice.
Congressman Kelly: Yeah, we win. Then going forward we go through that first couple years of the Obama administration. We fight the fight. We win the battle, and the next thing I know there another election coming up. There was a gal named Kathy Dahlkemper who was serving in, at that time it was Pennsylvania’s third congressional district. Before Ms. Dahlkemper the was a guy named Phil English. Phil English had been there I think about fourteen years. I got a call from Phil. He said, “Hey, are you going to be in the dealership?”
I said, “Yeah, I’m here. I gotta be.”
And he goes, “I want to talk to you.”
So he comes to the dealership and I said, “Phil, it’s really good to see you. Sorry you’re not still serving in Congress.”
He said, “Well, that was a wave election. President Obama is in office. Ms. Dalkemper is now our representative.” He said, “But what I wanted to talk about what you running for Congress.”
I said, “Me? No, no, no. Listen, I got a pretty full schedule right now. We’ve got about 150 people that expect to be payed every two weeks. I think I better stay here and work at the business.”
He said, “Seriously. We need people from the private sector serving in these positions because its too much about professional politicians and people who have never had a worry about making payroll, people who have never had to worry about taxes. They have’t had to worry about that. You may be a guy that could make a difference.”
So, I talked to my wife. I talked to my kids. My wife initially said, “Absolutely not. I know how this works. They go after your kids. They go after you. They go after your family. It’s just not worth it. It’s horrible.”
I said, “Well, the alternative is if someone from the private sector doesn’t serve, you’ll keep the same model that you’ve got going on now.”
But my kids said, “Dad, no, at least try.” So I was one of like fourteen or fifteen candidates in the Republican primary for the election in 2010, the fall of 2010. Got through the primary and then got into the general election and then won in the general election. So I went into office in 2011. So we’re finishing up since 2011. It will be ten years.
Donovan: Yeah, so you’ve been in the private sector in 2008 when things were a little bit tough. Now you’re on the other side during this current time where its a little bit, kind of getting a little tough again, huh? But you’ve gone through some tough stuff. You just had the COVID-19.
Congressman Kelly: Yeah, I had the coronavirus.
Donovan: So tell us about that. I mean, how did that affect you? How did you feel? Is there a lot of misconceptions about it out there? From your persona experience, what do you think?
Congressman Kelly: My personal experience, because we were home from Washington, and it was St. Patrick’s week in the middle of March, and we were working every day. We were working every day, and I come home from work my wife said, “You don’t look good.”
And I said, “Well thanks.”
And she said, “No seriously, you don’t look like you feel good.”
I said, “I feel fine.”
She said, “Well, I’m not sure that you do or not. You’re going to bed early. You’re getting up early to go to work, but it seems to me that you’re sleeping a lot more than you normally would.” Well, you know, I wasn’t seeing it the way she saw it. First off, you loose your appetite. I had no appetite at all. You have no sense of taste. You can’t taste things. I had muscle spasms. I had headaches. The biggest part of the coronavirus is the respiratory problem. I did not have the respiratory problem, and I had friends that had it the same time I did and they said, “Are you on a ventilator?”
And I said, “Of course I’m not on a ventilator. I couldn’t be talking to you.”
They said, “Are you on oxygen?”
And I said, “I’m not on oxygen.”
“Are you in the hospital?”
I said, “No, I’m at home.”
They said, “Really? What do you think the difference is?”
I said, “Well, you know early on my wife said “Please go get tested for this.”” So the test is a long swab they insert up your nose and reallyyou think its going to come out the corner of your eye. No, I’m serious. It’s very uncomfortable. A couple days later my doctor called me back and said, “How are you feeling?”
I said, “I feel fine. Tired.”
He said, “You know what? You tested positive.”
Donovan: Oh man.
Congressman Kelly: So I said, “Okay, well Bill, then what do I do? I know I can’t be out in the public, so we’ll self quarantine for a couple weeks.”
He said, “No, this is going to be more than that for you. I want you to look into something. There something called hydroxychloroquine. Your general health is good, but I want you to read up on it, and I want you to discuss it with Vicky and see that you think. I think it’s something you may want to try, because if this settles in your respiratory system it’s something that can be very serious.”
I said, “Let me read up on it.” Read up on it. Got back to him a day or two later and said, “You know what, Bill? I’m going to try it.” So very early on in my battle with the coronavirus I was taking hydroxychloroquine.
Donovan: And that worked for you?
Congressman Kelly: And you know what, for me it worked. I know there was some controversy over it and most of the controversy came down to well if President Trump endorses it, it must be bad. Well, because, listen, with some people, no matter what the President does its wrong. But it has been since proved to be an alternative that you should look forward to. The good part about having the coronavirus and recovering fully is that you get your blood tested and I have the antibodies. So, because you have the antibodies you can now enter into this immune therapy where they will take the plasma from your blood and they’ll use that in trying to develop a vaccine that could defeat the coronavirus and maybe keep somebody alive. Easy process, painless. You go to the blood bank. They take your blood. Your blood goes right back into your body minus the plasma that was taken out. I’ve done that three times now. I’ll probably do it another three or four times. I can do it about every ten days. For that part, that’s been good.
Donovan: My wife and I also just went to give blood to see if we had the antibodies and see if we can help out. We came back negative, that we didn’t have it, but I know exactly what you’re talking about. We were actually hoping maybe we had it so maybe we could try to help out like you’re helping out.
Congressman Kelly: As I said, even out of the worst situations usually there’s something good. So for me and my situation, was I sick for a while? Yes, I was sick for a while. Uh, loss of appetite. I lost thirty pounds in about ten days.
Donovan: Oh my.
Congressman Kelly: Yeah, well I put a little bit back on. It was just because I had no desire to eat. I couldn’t taste anything. So I was trying to drink water and eat little things of applesauce. That was about it.
Donovan: So in the same way the coronavirus kind of caused you to slim down, I think we’ve seen a little bit of the slimming down of the American economy. I know you probably have a little bit of a different perspective of that because you’re seeing it more at a federal level and seeing how things are playing out. I’m just trying to get your opinion on that. How do you feel that the economy is doing right now, and maybe how it’s going to go in the future? What do you think about that?
Congressman Kelly: I think the president’s reaction right away was to go get some programs put together so working in conjunction with the Congress to come up with economic relief programs that would really help out. The PPP program is one that is very essential. We look back at that now. Over five million businesses were able to participate in this loan process. 51.1 million American workers were able to still get that paycheck. They didn’t get laid off. They were able to still get paid. I think people loose the concept of what does that mean. Well here’s what it means. If you’re not laid off, you’re not on unemployment compensation. If you’re not laid off and you’re being paid, that means you’re still contributing with your wage taxes into the Social Security and the other taxes. You get taxed on that money, and for the businesses it mean that they were able to stay open. Now in Pennsylvania Governor Wolf and Secretary Levine had decided that there’s non-life essential businesses and so a lot of businesses were forced to shut down but it wasn’t because the business had a flawed business philosophy. It wasn’t some kind of a blunder. It was something decided by the administration, the Pennsylvania administration, that these businesses would be shut down. In some cases it was controversial what was being shut down. States that surround us didn’t have the same restrictions. In some places your competing in a market where right across the state border they are wide open and yet you’re shut down.
Donovan: We’re sitting twenty minutes from Ohio right now. They were definitely on different regulations. Some of our employees are even from Ohio. We’re very familiar with what you’re saying as far as different businesses didn’t quite make the playing field as even in the economy at that point whenever that was going on. We are glad for everything that’s going on as far as the federal government and what they’ve done to try to help out. Do you see anything else coming down the line that might be kind of helping getting things going?
Congressman Kelly: Yeah, I do. I think that the president is very aware. Thank God we have someone from the private sector, not a professional politician who has never had to worry about their business being successful in order to still make payroll, and never had to worry about regulations holding you back from being able to produce a product or the service that you’ve done. You look at the regulations sometimes like, “Who came up with these ideas?” Not anybody that’s ever been in business. It’s the politicians and policy makers who have never actually walked that walk. So they’re coming up with those ideas. I’m not saying that they’re bad people. I’m saying that while they may have been well intended, they were flawed. So we look at that. I think any of us from the business world, the private world, I think we look at things so differently because we can’t afford to make a mistake. You’re walking a high wire without a net underneath you if you fall to catch you. You actually hit the ground and you get hurt. I just think that, what we’ve always been in America, we’re a country made up of people who love to work. They love challenge. They love something in front of them that people say, “You can’t possibly get through this,” and they say, “You know what, watch me. I will.” So, I think that’s basically who America is. Now I think one of the things that’s happened, though, and again, politicians making policy and not having any background in the businesses that they’re making policy for. So, why do I say that? Well, I will tell you this. When we went away from America making things in America, being supplied by America and we’ll use foreign entities because it’s a little bit cheaper. So the finished product will be a little more affordable. We found out during the pandemic that, you know what, these people from around the world are going to help you when it’s profitable for them. They’re not going to help you when it’s not. When they can take advantage of that, they’ll take advantage of that. There’s nobody that has shown up more in Americans’ mind than, I think, China. China has done a number on the United States and for years I sat and would listen to policy makers and talking about trade because the committee that I’m on, on Ways and Means, because part of our jurisdiction is trade policy I would hear people say the most outlandish things. People that grew up in America, that live in America, that represent Americans saying, “Well, I would rather it come from China. I would rather it come out of Vietnam.” I would rather, I would rather, and my question is wouldn’t you rather it came right from the state you live in? Wouldn’t you rather it came from the town that you live in? Are you kidding me? What don’t you understand? It always came down to “Well it’s too expensive sometimes to make it in America,” and I say, “The greater expense is not making in America someday, when not only our jobs but our national defense will be threatened and our national security because we’re relying on somebody from outside our country to help us to build what were building. So, I think we’re facing that right now. Like the USMCA, The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Why did the president want that renegotiated? Jobs! He said, “Why? Why would we allow this to happen?” So we did the USMCA, and it has been a lot of jobs back. He’s looking now at the other trade agreements we have around the world. I think he’s smart when he says, “You know what? I would rather do one on one trade agreements than the United States versus the Pacific, the countries in the Pacific Ocean.” No, we’re not going to do it that way. He’s got a completely different approach to it. His reason is different because he’s actually had to make payroll. He’s actually had to keep his businesses open. He’s had to actually go to banks. He’s actually gone bankrupt a couple times, and fought his way back to the top again. So you have that type of real life experience, and it’s the old story you tell your kids when they’re growing up. Be careful. Don’t touch the stove. It’s hot. All of us that have children know that a child has got to touch the stove because they don’t know what hot means. Once they’re burnt they understand it. I think America has touched the stove a lot of times, got burnt, and understands. Don’t touch that. It’s a hot stove. We’ve got to protect ourselves.
Donovan: I know for the guys in our shop, when we talk to them, one of the things that they really like is the whenever they’re buying American products it feels like when you purchase that, or when we get American steel, it’s not only that you’re helping to keep that money here, you’re actually helping to provide a job for your neighbor. You can provide a livelihood. You can pay for someone else’s kid’s college by giving them a chance to work as opposed to that money going overseas. I know in our shop and around here that’s the way we feel whenever we see that. American made, you know, and bringing jobs back to America. Do you think because of all this that we’ve experienced throughout this pandemic that this will drive some manufacturing back to the United States? I mean, do you see that coming?
Congressman Kelly: Definitely. I definitely do and I think more than anything else. I did reference the president already because his whole life has been in the private sector. Has he been successful? Yes. Has he had his failures? Yes. Has he had to fight his way back? Yes, but also now you have more people from the private sector looking at serving in public office. I don’t care if its a school board. I don’t care if its a township, working in a township, working in a county, or even at the federal level. You need to have that balance of the policy makers having actually been on the field and played and have their nose bloodied a couple times and had some defeats and learned to come back from it as opposed to people who are really good. I use this term sometimes and people get mad at me for saying it, but it’s the truth. A lot of the people I work with are great on a laptop, but they’ve never been on blacktop, and there’s a huge difference. There is a huge difference. Somebody will say, “Well, let me draw it up and I’ll tell you how it works.” Better yet, tell me what you’ve done in your life because if you’ve never done it you can’t possibly draw it. You can conceptualize, but unless you realize, unless you’ve walked that walk, I don’t really want to hear what you have to say. I’ll consider it, but I’m not buying it without actually trying it.
Donovan: Right, right. Well, I’m trying to think if there’s anything else that you wanted to talk about, or anything else we could cover.
Congressman Kelly: Let me say this because I think the key to a lot of what happens in our country, and the same right here. If I were to ask you “What is Imperial?” And you say, “Well we do this.” No, no. What is Imperial. And you would say, “I’ll tell you what Imperial is. Let me take you out in the shop and introduce you to our welders. Let me take you to our design people.” It’s all the teams that we build, right? So, we’re all looking for that talent and I don’t care if you’re serving in Congress. I have to tell you, the staff that works for Pennsylvania’s 16th Congressional District. They do not work for me. They work for Pennsylvania’s 16th Congressional District and all our constituents. They are the hardest working, most blessed people in the world. During this pandemic they have been working from home. They have been fielding an excess of 4,000 calls a week. Now, I’m not talking about fifty or sixty people. I’m talking about sixteen or seventeen people that get up every day and do the same thing everyday and that is serve, serve the constituents. People tell me, “Well, you konw, hey Kelly. I just want to thank you for what you did. I didn’t vote for you.” I said, “Well first of all, let me tell you this. You don’t need to thank me. Write up a thank you note and send it to the staff. Secondly, I didn’t know you didn’t vote for me until right now, but that’s not going to affect it. We’re going to work the best way we can to make sure we serve the people that put us in office. Getting back to what makes Imperial great is the team. What makes America great is when America is a team. I think that right now, I would hope people would look past some of the verbiage that’s out there today. I’ve never seen us more divided or more polarized as a country. When I talk to people I say, “What is it that bothers you?” Most of them will say, “Well, tweets.” I say, “Tweets? That’s what bothers you? Tweets?” What about the job market? What about your pension? What about the quality of our healthcare? What about what we’re going through right now with the police? My God. These men and women in blue that put their life on the line every day are not being chastised by a group of anarchist and vandals. When you look at the places this is happening, the people in charge of the safety and security of the people – why would they turn a blind eye to that? “They have to blow off steam.” You don’t allow people to break the law and say, “They’re just blowing off steam.” No. They’re destroying public and private property. You get arrested. You pay restitution. You don’t walk away from it. You don’t pull down our history and then celebrate it and say, “Well, you don’t know who this man was.” I say, “I do, and I know something else. You don’t have a freaking clue who you just pulled down.” So, look, our history is our history. We learn from our history. Was it perfect? No. It’s not perfect, but I will ask any of the people in America: Is there any other country that has to put up a wall to keep people out as opposed to keep people in? America is still the most desired address in the world. People go across deserts, go across oceans to come to America for the same reasons they always did, freedom and liberty. When I see what’s happening today I say, “My God, how can you talk despairingly about a nation where 1.5 million men and women in uniform gave their lives to give you that opportunity that you have today.” So please, quit looking at the TV and start looking at your life. Look at the place you work. Look at the place you worship. Look at the place you live, and tell me that you’re going to sit down tonight and make plans to move someplace else in the world because it’s just become so bad for you. It’s not true. America is still the greatest country, the greatest nation the world has ever known.
Donovan: I hear what you’re saying and I think the way I would sum it up is the way we’re going to get through this is by us depending on each other.
Congressman Kelly: Always.
Donovan: The American people and the American worker if there’s anything we’re good at is pulling ourselves up and figuring out a way to get through it. We appreciate having someone who has been there in the trenches before, and has been through a recession and is understanding how to tackle these problems in the government trying to help guide that and direct that for small businesses like us and for other small businesses out there. You have a real world perspective on what it takes to get through some tough times and how to take care of some people that have been under your care for generations. It’s great. I just want to say thanks for coming on.
Congressman Kelly: Thank you, thank you.
Donovan: Thanks for everything you said.
Congressman Kelly: I just want to leave you with this thought. A couple of years ago at our fiftieth class reunion we were sitting around with a bunch of the kids I graduated with and I said “You know what, are we the luckiest people in the world to grow up in the town we grew up in, the times we grew up in with parents and preachers and teachers and coaches? Gosh, were we lucky or what?” Now there’s about ten people sitting there and they’re saying, “Yeah, you know what? We were lucky. We were really lucky.” Except for one girl. One girl looked at me and she goes, “I don’t think we were lucky.”
I said, “Seriously? You don’t think we were lucky?”
She goes, “No, I don’t think we were lucky at all.”
I said, “Well, Linda, if we weren’t lucky what were we?”
She looked me in the eyes and she said, “We were blessed.”
And I said, “I will never again in my life tell people I was lucky. I will tell them I was blessed.” I think that’s who we are as a nation. We are truly the most blessed nation on the face of the earth with a lot of responsibility for the rest of the world and we show up. We show up. If there’s a tsunami somewhere, we’re there. If there’s a hurricane somewhere, we’re there. If there’s a tragedy somewhere, we’re there. We’ve given not only our wealth, we’ve given our lives to defend people around the world. Theres no other nation in the world that’s done that. Only in America. Only in America.
Donovan: I think we’re going to make it through this.
Congressman Kelly: Yes, yes we will.
Donovan: And we’re going to come out helping people on the other side.
Congressman Kelly: We sure will.
Donovan: Mike, thanks for coming on.
Congressman Kelly: It’s good to be with you. I love being with Imperial. This is great. We love you guys. You make great stuff. Made in America, for Americans. It’s good.
Donovan: There you go. Trying to keep Americans healthy and safe, and create a better work place for them. Thanks for all your help you’ve been for us getting things going here. We just want to say thanks for joining us on the Dusty Jobs Podcast and we hope that you listen again next time, and have a good night.
Congressman Kelly: Thank you. Thanks so much.
Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Dusty Jobs Podcast. Breathe better, work safer.
On this episode we talked to a few people from Imperial Systems about what it means to them to work for a company that manufactures American Made products and also is American Owned. We talked to a little bit of everyone from all parts of the company. It was great to hear the pride everyone has being a part of an American Company. This episode is published on July 4th, 2020 to show how thankful we are for the freedoms we have.
If you have any suggestions on Dust Collection Equipment please feel free to email us at dustyjobspodcast@isystemsweb.com.
Dusty Jobs Podcast Episode 7 – July 4th Special with Imperial Systems
Narrator: Welcome to the Dusty Jobs Podcast from Imperial Systems. Industry knowledge to make your job easier and safer.
Donovan: Thanks for joining us again on the Dusty Jobs Podcast. Today we’re live from our shop talking to our workers that work here at Imperial Systems. We’re kicking off our Proud to be an American Made in America month. We’re going to be talking to our workers about that and what it means for them to work at an American made and American owned company. So, first up is Justin Badger.
Justin: Thanks for having me.
Donovan: Thanks for coming on again Justin.
Justin: You’re welcome.
Donovan: So how do you fell about made in America? What does that mean to you when you hear the phrase “Made in America”?
Justin: When I think made in America, its quality and pride in production and manufacturing. When you buy something made in the United States you’re buying the best product that you can possibly buy. It’s important to me because I see that if I buy something made in America I’m supporting American jobs and not sending my money overseas to something being made in a third world country.
Donovan: Supporting you neighbor. You feel like if you buy an American product you’re supporting your neighbor. You’re putting food on your neighbor’s plate.
Justin: Absolutely. That’s important.
Donovan: How do you feel about working for an American made company? We’re American made and American owned. How does that make you feel when you come to work each day?
Justin: Well, being in sales I love it because I get to go out in the field and talk to other manufacturing companies that are actually making in the USA and attempt to hopefully sell them our products that we get to make here in the United States which supports jobs locally, here. It keeps our guys working and our ladies working shipping our product in the United States. Seeing our product after its been sold in the process where its being used, our dust collectors, making the health and safety of our customers better in their facility. I really think its cool full circle.
Donovan: Yeah, we’re helping to not only support our local economy but keeping Americans healthy and safe while they’re doing their jobs to boost our economy.
Justin: Absolutely. It’s really exciting.
Donovan: Thanks for your input. We really appreciate it.
Justin: Thanks for having me.
Donovan: We’re going to be having a few other guys.
Justin: Alright. Have a good day.
Donovan: We also have joining us Neina Morocco. She does aftermarket sales here at Imperial Systems.
Neina: I do, yes.
Donovan: The question today is how does made in America make you feel? How does that idea, that phrase make you feel?
Neina: It makes me feel great. It shows that we’re busy. It shows production, manufacturing, growth. So I love American made. I’m happy to work for an American made company.
Donovan: Thanks. Thanks for sharing that. In your role, how do you feel being an American made company. Does that help you in your role here at Imperial?
Neina: Yeah, I think people take great pride in American made products, so it only boosts our business if you will.
Donovan: Well thanks for coming on.
Neina: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Donovan: Yeah, appreciate it.
Donovan: Next we have joining us Lemoyne Moffett. He’s one of our welders here in the shop. So Lemoyne, what does American made mean to you? How do you feel when you hear American made?
Lemoyne: I think our workers are proud that they work somewhere that everything is American made. We’re using American goods to produce a product that we’re proud of and knowing that we’re supporting our families and other families.
Donovan: How do you like working for an American made company knowing that its American ownership and knowing that everything kind of stays here. How does that make you feel?
Lemoyne: It makes you proud knowing that you’re doing your part for America.
Donovan: Yeah, that’s it. Well thanks for coming on. Keep up the good work.
Lemoyne: Thank you. We will.
Donovan: Next is Dwayne King from assembly. He’s been working here for a while. He’s also a farmer. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for not only working here making American made products. How long have you been farming?
Dwayne: I’ve been around the farm all my life. I just probably got back into it in the last two or three years.
Donovan: Not only are you helping make American made products but you’re helping produce food for America.
Dwayne: That’s right, absolutely.
Donovan: So how does that make you feel? How do you feel working for an American made company helping make American made products.
Dwayne: Well, it really makes you feel good. A lot of stuff that we get doesn’t have “Made in America” on it. I try to buy anything that’s made in America. It makes me feel good when I do that. That way you’re supporting your local people and everything like that. I’m also a member of the Lion’s club so I’m in community service and stuff like that. Made in America is the only way for me.
Donovan: There you go. It makes you feel good at the end of the day when you go home and know not only that you helped build a good product but helped support those in your community.
Dwayne: Absolutely.
Donovan: Thanks for everything you do here. We appreciate it. Thanks for giving us a minute.
Dwayne: Sure thing. Thank you.
Donovan: Joining us now is Xavier Ranelli. He works on our press brake over there. You’ve been with the company for how long?
Xavier: Two years now.
Donovan: Two years. So when we say American made and American made products – I’m just trying to get a feel. What does that mean to you? What does that make you feel like? What does that bring to your mind when we say “American made.”
Xavier: When I think of American made I honestly think of better quality, more safe, better for the environment.
Donovan: With that all being said. We’re an American made company and American owned. How do you like that? How do you like working for a company that an American made and American owned company?
Xavier: I love it. Every piece of steel that I bend I have so much pride going into it knowing that there’s no chance that anything is going to mess up or break because its faulty.
Donovan: yeah, that’s it. Well thank you so much for what you do. Thank you for your time that you’re here. Thanks for coming on today.
Xavier: Of course. Any time.
Donovan: Joining us next is Mitch Augustine. Mitch does sales here at Imperial. Mitch tells us what you feel like when you hear the phrase “Made in America”.
Mitch: Well Donovan, two words really come to mind. The first of which that really stands out above all is quality. It just seems to me that everything made in America usually has a higher level of quality. It will just be built better and last longer than things that aren’t.
Donovan: So working for an American made and American owned company how do you feel about that? How does that make you feel at the end of the day?
Mitch: Pride would be the first word that comes to mind. Theres a real sense of pride about what we do and the industries that our product goes in. Being in sales I am extremely fortunate to be out in the field seeing first hand where our equipment goes and sizing and designing to that. I mean everything from cabinetry to lift trucks to, you name it, recycling. I get to see a lot of them. The finest places in America.
Donovan: You get to see other American made products being put together and helping our product help keep their people clean and safe and healthy.
Mitch: Absolutely. We see a lot of the foreign failures as well. We’ve had the chance to rip out some of that stuff and replace it with ours.
Donovan: Well hey thanks for coming on today. We appreciate it.
Mitch: You bet Donovan. Thanks for having me.
Donovan: Joining us next is Ian Weller. He helps with our programming here at Imperial Systems. Ian, when you hear the phrase “Made in America” how does that make you feel? What do you think about when you hear that?
Ian: How does that make me feel?
Donovan: Yeah, what do you think about? How does that phrase make you feel?
Ian: I’d say it inspires a bit of confidence.
Donovan: When you think of an American made product, what does that make you think about?
Ian: Honeslty the first thing that comes to mind if I were to describe it with like an adjective would be beefy.
Donovan: Nice. That’s good. So working for an American made company, an American owned company, how do you feel when you go home at the end of the day working for a company like that.
Ian: Pretty good. I mean, I feel good about it.
Donovan: Well good. Ian, thanks for coming on today. I appreciate your time. Thanks for what you do here.
Ian: Thanks!
Donovan: Joining us next is Randyll Bearer. He also helps with our computer department, programming, helping develop software at Imperial Systems. Randyll, when I say the words “Made in America” what do you think of?
Randyll: It’s a complicated phrase. For the most part its means to me that its being made by your neighbors, pretty much. It’s the people around you, same area. As long as everyone around is producing and consuming for each other, everyone is good to go.
Donovan: So with that in mind, working at a company that’s American made and American owned, how does that make you feel being part of that system that you just described. How do you feel at the end of the day?
Randyll: Other than exhausted?
Donovan: Ha! Yeah, other than exhausted.
Randyll: Theres definitely a sense of pride to it. I mean we’re becoming more and more of a global world for the most part. Being able to see that what you’re doing helps someone near you, that its a visible result, feels really nice.
Donovan: Well we really appreciate what you do here. Thank you for all your work, and thanks for coming on today.
Randyll: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it.
Donovan: Joining us today is Jeremiah Wann, the owner of our company. Thanks for coming on Jeremiah.
Jeremiah: You bet.
Donovan: Today we’ve been talking about American made and we’ve had a lot of people from our company come on and just talk about what it means to them to not only work for an American made company, and develop that product with American made products, just what it means to them in general. When they see a product that is American made how that makes them feel. You as the owner of the company helping drive an American business forward to help in development, to help strengthen our local economy and really put products out there for everybody. When you see American made, what does that mean to you? How does that make you feel, like helping to make that part of an American reality?
Jeremiah: I don’t have a problem with something being made in another country, or do I have a problem with another country whatsoever. I’m totally fine with that and I know that in some other countries they make better products than we make here. Theres just no way around that, but especially in recent days with the COVID virus and the shortages we were having with our supply chain and some different issues. Today I think its more important than ever to make sure we are vertically integrated meaning we bring everything in house that we can. We make it right here in Mercer, PA or wherever we’re at within the US, and our suppliers. We went back through our supply chain and said, “We don’t buy very much internationally at all for supplies, but there are a few items that we either felt like we didn’t have a choice to go overseas because maybe they weren’t made anywhere else or we just didn’t know because we were buying through a third party. So we went through and we identified the ones that were made overseas. Really they kind of identified themselves in a way that when we were going through the tougher times and we’re in somewhat of a green phase right now. We’re not out of the virus at all. We’re still in it. But those items identified themselves because they weren’t here. They didn’t show up.
Donovan: They weren’t available.
Jeremiah: Yeah. We had some hinges on some of our lighter products that we were just buying from a supply house and we started tracking it down and found out that they were made in China. So, we said “Can we get US made hinges?” So we went back through thinking, “Man, its going to be a lot more expensive.” Come to find out that they weren’t much more money at all. They had a higher rating, as far as a load rating, and they’re made right here in the US. So it was a simple decision for us to do that. So we’re doing our best right now to buy everything US made. All of our steel is made in the US. Sometimes we get some stuff from Canada. We don’t have complete control over that. 99% of it is made right here in the US. Theres definitely a certain level of pride with that. I talk about a lot that I think that my grandfather’s generation was very proud of that because they were the World War II generation and their parents were the World War I generation. So they fought, and they had brothers and sisters and family members that died fighting for the freedom we have today in this country to do what we’re doing right here, in this podcast, right?
Donovan: Right, right.
Jeremiah: And to have this business and this opportunity to be in sales or to be in marketing or whatever the case may be. There were people that gave their lives for that. When I was a younger kid there was much more pride about the American flag and about that product being made in the US than there is today. Although I will tell you that now there seems to be more of a movement in the direction that people are very proud to have things that are made in the US. I’ll tell you a real life experience. The other day my wife and I were looking at lawn furniture for our backyard and I said “I’m not going to buy that if it’s not made here in the US.” Go try to buy lawn furniture right now that’s made in the United States. So we did some web searching and we found a company in New Jersey that makes beautiful lawn furniture that’s made right here in the US. I probably paid 20% more for it, but I’m happy to know that it was by American workers, by an American owned company, and that just made me feel better. It’s all personal preference. Being that we are a manufacturer here we know what it takes. We know the blood, sweat, and effort that is put into this every day. I feel hypocritical if I’m not supporting other US manufacturers.
Donovan: Yeah, I hear you. A lot of people here feel the same way. We’ve heard a lot of those same sentiments today on the podcast. Thanks for giving us a minute of your time, and to give us your heart.
Jeremiah: You bet. I’ll tell you one other thing too though that I think is just as important is that it’s not just American made but American owned, right? A lot of the companies right now are coming in from overseas. They’re setting up manufacturing in the United States, which is good. We’re glad to have them. All of that money goes back to overseas. So we’re trying really hard right now to build our economy, all of us are. We’re all in it together. We want a better economy. We want a better life. So if you really want that, then I encourage everybody to try to buy US made. Good luck buying your clothing made in the United States. It may look a little different than some of the styles you like or the brands you like, but try if you can. Nothing against other countries. We wish them the best. We want to help them too and support them. I know for them it would help them as well to strengthen their own economy by building within their own economy. So, I’m glad you guys are talking about it. I heard we’re interviewing some folks
I think also I would like to share another quick story about some of the patriotism that I have been seeing here lately. We are currently putting a project through the plant that is going to the Marine Corps base in Okinawa. I had kind of heard that we were putting this project through but I didn’t really. I kind of forgot about it because it was a month or so later and I was walking through the plant and one of the welder came up to me and said “Hey, that collector that’s going to Okinawa – my father was based in Okinawa.”
I said, “Oh, really? For the military?”
He said “Yeah, World War II.”
I said, “Okay.
He said, “Man, it just really brings back a lot of memories.” He was building the structure for it.
I said, “Oh, that’s fantastic. Thanks for sharing that with me.” I kind of moved on and the next day I’m standing out in the plant. I’m in that same general area and he comes over to me and he said, “Do you have a minute?”
I said, “Sure.” He literally had probably thirty photographs with him. You know, a big portrait of his father, and all these stories. They were real newspapers from Okinawa that were like – and I didn’t read them all – they were like, and I’m going to get the dates wrong.
Donovan: But they were from during that time frame?
Jeremiah: Yeah. ’46? ’45? I can’t remember the exact dates.
Donovan: That sounds about right.
Jeremiah: I’ll double check myself. Anyways, he was so proud of those photos. He was saying, “This thing is going to go to the same area where my dad was.” Now, at the time I don’t think that the Marine Corps base existed probably at that time, but a lot of our US troops were over there. Later the welders were saying, “Man this thing is going to the Marine Corps base in Okinawa.” The enthusiasm and patriotism has been shining through the whole plant right now, in sales and everywhere. Even up in accounting they’re talking about it. So, I don’t know. I don’t plant this stuff. It just kind of comes up. Thats just a true feeling we have as Americans. We’re proud about that. I’ll finish that story. So, he comes to me. He’s showing me pictures of his dad and all he did. I said “How’s your father doing now? How is he?” He said, “He passed away. I was seventeen years old.” So, the man fought through World War II. He started to raise a family. Then in his letters you could see where he was talking about the kiddos and stuff. Then he came home and when Lemoyne was 17 years old and his dad was in the backyard cutting a tree down the tree fell and killed his dad. So he never really got to know his dad. The emotion and how choked up he got was so authentic and so real. It hit me. I just told him, “Thanks for sharing that story with me.” I wanted to document it so I actually took some photos of Lemoyne and his love for his dad. For two thirds of his life – I mean, he probably doesn’t really remember what his dad was like except faint memories of him, but he still just absolutely loves him. I just reassured him. I said, “You’ll be with your dad someday again in heaven. You’re blessed for doing that, and thank you for letting me in on that part of your story.” That’s patriotism and that’s why we’re proud to be American made.
Donovan: Yeah, that’s a lot of stuff…
Jeremiah: Yeah, I know you didn’t ask for all that.
Donovan: No, it’s great! It’s great because it goes beyond just the pieces of steel that we’re welding together here. It shows that our community and our family of Imperial Systems and how we work together not just to build our economy and build a great product but how we try to take care of each other here in the plant. Theres a lot more that goes into it than just a product. So thanks for sharing that. It really helps us, and I think that really does talk a lot about what it means to be made in America and made by your neighbors, and made by people who share those stories and understand the sacrifices that we made and our grandparents and those before us made to allow us to have this opportunity.
Jeremiah: And some are still making today.
Donovan: They still are. Well, hey, thanks for joining us on the Dusty Jobs Podcast. We really hope that you’ll join us on the next one and for now be safe and God bless America.
Jeremiah: Thank you very much Donovan. Alright, buddy.
Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Dusty Jobs Podcast. Breathe better, work safer.
Dust hazards in the workplace continue to draw attention. NFPA Standard 652 on Combustible Dust has set a deadline of September 2020 to complete a dust hazard analysis. What is a DHA, though, and how do you do one?
Here at Imperial Systems, we were lucky enough to interview Bob Korn, a veteran process safety professional from DEKRA Process Safety. After doing many dust hazard analyses (and lots of other safety assessments), Bob broke down the process of how to do a DHA that will meet all your NFPA 652 standards.
Dust Hazard Analysis from a Pro
Bob has been in the field of industrial safety and protection for more than twenty years. He joined us for a podcast to clear up some of the mysteries about doing a dust hazard analysis.
Bob explains that there are three parts to a full dust hazard analysis. First, you need to know the characteristics of your dust. Does this mean you need to have your dust tested? Sometimes your industry has data that you can use in place of a test. The only problem is that this data needs to be on exactly the same dust as you have.
If you need a dust test, many companies can help you get one. They’ll give you a report that gives you information about how to handle your dust. You’ll need this report to be able to conduct a dust hazard analysis, and you’ll need to keep it available.
After you’ve had your dust tested, it’s time for the dust hazard analysis. Bob and DEKRA have a lot of experience providing many types of process safety analysis, so we asked him to walk us through the steps.
Dust Hazards and Finding Safety Risks
Testing your dust won’t be helpful if you just file the data away. You need this information to conduct your DHA. Bob and his colleagues conduct process safety analyses as a career, and Bob was kind enough to walk us through the steps.
Bob explains that there are four main areas of concern they focus on first.
Can enough dust loft into the air to cause ignition?
Are there likely ignition sources?
Bob also discusses how you can’t just look at what he calls “standard operating conditions” or “upset conditions”. Many companies only look at standard operating conditions, when everything is working normally. Bob says you need to consider the upset conditions when something goes wrong.
For example, you may think your dust hazard analysis has located and controlled the obvious ignition sources. However, if something goes wrong, you might have a brand-new ignition source. Bob asks “What happens if this belt comes off or this pulley gets stuck, or this sensor doesn’t work, and you know, what are the potential risks to associate with that?”.
Many combustible dust accidents happen when equipment wears out, a process changes or someone does something they normally don’t do (like hot work in a dangerous area). The infamous Imperial Sugar explosion, for example, happened because of an equipment change. Despite all the combustible dust, the explosion was ignited by a minor equipment change on a conveyor belt under the silos. A professional safety process analyst will look for processes that have the potential for failure or a dust explosion.
Conducting a Dust Hazard Analysis the Professional Way
Bob explains that after the dust testing, the process safety professional will plan a walkthrough of the facility. Several members of the company’s team can be valuable in this process.
Bob says, “You typically have an EHS person, one of their safety people. You want an operations person, someone that’s familiar with each of the unit operations that you’re going to be looking at. Maintenance people are very useful in the dust hazard analysis. They’re the people who really know the ins and outs of the facility.”
The team will walk through the entire building, looking at each process and each machine. The team also checks for fugitive dust or accumulations of dust. These housekeeping issues can be the cause of serious combustible dust accidents.
After the walkthrough and assessment, Bob explains the report that his company puts together for the client. If not using a company like DEKRA, a facility will need to put together a report themselves.
“They’ll prepare a report that certainly documents their observations and their findings,” Bob explains. “The team identifies the gaps in the safety measures that are existing, or just missing completely. And then make recommendations to close those gaps. We will then risk-rank those recommendations from high, medium to low.”
This rating allows companies to prioritize situations they need to deal with. Some lower-priority issues need to be addressed, but the health and safety risks could be much greater if a high priority issue slipped through the cracks.
Bob also notes that sometimes an issue is so severe that they will recommend the company stop the process or machine immediately until the problem is fixed.
What To Do After the Analysis
Once you’ve received this report or completed it yourself, the next step is to start addressing any problems that were found. Even if you can’t fix all of them right away, at least you can document the efforts you’re making to take care of them.
The high, medium and low priority ratings that Bob and his colleagues assign help companies spread out the money and resources where they’re needed most.
Bob also notes that employees at the company may not have a full understanding of combustible dust hazards, or their other process hazards. As an essential safety tool, training can prevent issues from continuing.
“Depending upon the client need we offer either onsite training from simple one-hour overviews to webinar training,” Bob says. “We also include workshops in those training that we can tailor to similar operations that that client might have on their site.”
Your Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) is the authority in charge of NFPA compliance at your facility. If they come by after the September deadline for DHA completion, you’ll be able to show them you’ve taken all the important steps:
Had your dust tested
Conducted a dust hazard/process hazard analysis
Addressing or have a plan to address problems
Trained your employees to recognize and handle problems
Have all of your documentation of this in order
If you’ve followed all these steps, you have followed the major steps toward keeping your facility safer from combustible dust and other safety issues.
This episode is full of the ins and outs of how to go about getting a full Dust Collection system for your facility. Jeremiah talks about the different things you have to consider when you begin your search. They also discuss the challenges that come into play when dealing with explosive dust. Also if you need, Imperial Systems is always here to help guide you to the best design for your facility.
If you have any suggestions on Dust Collection Equipment please feel free to email us at dustyjobspodcast@isystemsweb.com.
Dusty Jobs Podcast Episode 6 – System Design with Jeremiah Wann
Narrator: Welcome to the Dusty Jobs Podcast from Imperial Systems. Industry knowledge to make your job easier and safer.
Donovan: Thanks again for joining us here today. We have Jeremiah Wann again. How are you Jeremiah?
Jeremiah: I’m doing great. How are you doing?
Donovan: Good, good. Hey, today we have a couple of questions that came in. We’re going to answer some of those. One of them was on system design. So we got Jeremiah back in. Jeremiah, tell us about yourself and what you know about system design, a little bit of your own history.
Jeremiah: Right, okay. Well, my name is Jeremiah Wann. I’m the CEO of Imperial Systems. Day in and day out that’s what we do here, system design. Is this more of a weld fume type question?
Donovan: We’re going to be covering some weld fume system design. That’s what we got asked to cover. You’ve been doing this for, what?
Jeremiah: Over twenty years.
Donovan: Over twenty years?
Jeremiah: Mmhmm.
Donovan: So you have a little bit of experience in this realm. So lets just start walking through it from the beginning. So lets say I’m a customer, and I’m coming to you and I’m saying, “Hey, I have weld smoke in my shop. What do I do?” Just basically where do I start? Where do I need to start to figure out where to handle this issue?
Jeremiah: Sure. Well, you know, it’s a conversation we have daily. In fact, I was just talking with a guy a little bit ago. A common scenario is that a customer calls in or emails saying that they have weld fume issues and they need to address it. So, what we do typically is we either send someone out on site depending on where its at and the time frame we have to get it done. Usually someone will go on site but if not we can work with pictures and then sketches and stuff to at least get started.
Donovan: But an onsite visit is the best situation, right?
Jeremiah: Always, yeah always the best thing to do for sure. Typically what we need to do is find out what they’re doing. Is it MIG? Is it TIG? Are they soldering? What’s the application, right? One of the things we like to look at too is obviously is it robotic, is it manual. How many hours a day are they welding and what’s their downtime?
Donovan: So let’s say I’m the customer. I call in. I say “Hey, I’m having this situation. You’re going to come out. You’re going to look at my system.” What should I expect are the questions that you’re going to ask me once I get out there? What should I have ready for you as a customer who is trying to solve my weld smoke problem. What is some stuff I should be ready with?
Jeremiah: Right, its pretty easy. That’s what’s nice about this side of this is we take full responsibility. Essentially what I would like to do is go take a walk around. Go see the application. See the operation, if it’s up and running. Sometimes we get a call saying “We’re putting a plant in. Here’s what we’re doing.” Really all we need to know is just what do the weld cells look like? Is there weld cells? Sometimes there’s just big open high bays with overhead cranes. We can do that too. They all have their challenges. Basically, let us get in front of you. Let us find out from you what specifics you have. Are you welding stainless? That’s one thing today that’s kind of a big thing. We want to make sure that there’s not hex chrome present.
Donovan: Now, if there’s hex chrome present does that create another set of standards? Another set of issues? If I’m welding hex chrome what should I be worried about?
Jeremiah: Well the main thing is our filters can handle it. Our filters will clean it properly and bring it back into your plant for that matter to where you can breathe the air again. You just have to put HEPA filtration after the primary filters to get that out.
Donovan: So it would just be another thing that you’re trying to qualify what needs done to maintain that air quality.
Jeremiah: Yeah, that’s not a problem. We also may deal with the way we capture it. So, if there’s something like hex chrome in it where you really don’t want that smoke going up inside the guy’s weld helmet or across his body. So, usually we want to use some sort of close source capture with a hood or with an arm or something. Downdraft if you can.
Donovan: So lets take just take one step back. You’re going to come look. You give us an evaluation of what our facility looks like. You have to identify what they’re welding on, what the smoke’s producing, where it’s coming from. Then from that point you try to decide kind of system you need?
Jeremiah: Sure, sure. So, yeah at that point what we really like to do is determine what size parts they’re doing. Are they in weld cells? Are they out in the open? I’ll just break it down for you. You really have a few different types of systems that you can do weld fume in. If you have a high bay, you’ve got big parts. You’ve got overhead cranes. You’ve got a lot of obstacles. You may be welding tanks in one part of the shop one day and the next day you may be welding semi trucks.
Donovan: Yeah, big stuff.
Jeremiah: Yeah I mean like small tanks one day and semi trucks the next day. You never know what you’re going to see in our business.
Donovan: Like a custom shop.
Jeremiah: A custom shop. So in that case really the only way to do that outside of little portable units with arms on them which, we can talk about that a little bit. I’m not a big fan of those.
Donovan: Well, I can only imagine trying to drag one of those behind you all day. It would be a challenge.
Jeremiah: Yeah, there’s definitely a challenge with those. Really the only other way to do it is to just do ambient. What that means is to just put ductwork up above the crane rails or down below the crane rails on the stools of the crane, if at all possible. Basically we just work off of air changes at that point. We may do eight to ten air changes an hour base on the volume of the building. You can also do more like localized ambient. So if you’ve got a hundred thousand square foot facility but you’re only doing welding in a thousand square foot of it or whatever, you can do ambient above that area as well.
Donovan: Kind of put a unit in there to handle that smoke drifting into the rest of the facility.
Jeremiah: Yeah, and that’s what we do here. We have a 95,000 square foot facility and we only weld in probably 30 or 40,000 of it.
Donovan: Theres no need for duct collection where we’re storing boxes.
Jeremiah: Yeah, where we’re doing assembly it’s really clean. We don’t do that there.
Donovan: Yeah, so that would be an ambient system solution?
Jeremiah: That would be an ambient system. The other way to look at it would be where, oftentimes when you go into a plant, and say they’re building lawnmower parts or automotive carseats. We get into all kinds of different things, but those are small parts. So lets say they’re making those on fixtures or robotically. At that point then you can do source capture. If they’re robots, then, you know, usually the robots are enclosed and they’re really easy to put a hood over. So that’s more localized. So with a robot you may put a hood over it or if its already got an enclosure you just vent that enclosure.
If you’re welding in cells then you can either do a side draft hood or downdraft hood, or an arm that we talked about earlier with the portables. The issue with the arms, or I guess I’ll start with the nice thing about the arms. The nice thing about the arms is if they’re used properly they can probably capture 100% of the smoke for the most part. They use less air because you have a six inch diameter pipe versus with ambient you’ve got to take more air into consideration.
The downside to it is that nobody uses them. It’s tough because even in our old plant we spend a lot of money putting about twelve arms down in this one area and thought, “This is going to be the way to go. We definitely want to use it.” Of course we put a CMAXX in with it and our cartridge filter. As the owner of the company, it would drive me absolutely crazy because we have a really good crew of people here. No doubt about it. They’re all in, and they’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done. But they did not like moving that hood all day long. So they’re welding pipe, or they’re welding a frame up, and every six inches you have to stop, not just to reposition the weld again, but now you have to think about that hood. That’s really the last thing on that welder’s mind, or it should be. He’s got to worry about a quality weld.
Donovan: That’s one more step for them to do.
Jeremiah: We just haven’t seen them work well for that.
Donovan: So in that situation you’re saying maybe a hood in weld cell is a little bit better? Or a downdraft table is a better solution at that point?
Jeremiah: Yeah, and sometimes we’ve done hybrid systems too, where really the majority of it we’re going to be able to capture with the ambient but over in this area they’ve got stainless or something they’re welding on, or they’re doing little six inch or eight inch parts all day long. That’s a perfect hood application. Just keep putting that part back on there. No big deal. I get it. We don’t have it anymore but we used to have a weld seamer at our old plant where it would weld five foot joints of pipe all day long. You can put a little three inch flex hose on that and boom, no problem. So, we always take those into consideration. Ultimately we’re trying to design the best system for our customer. We have to be competitive. We have competition, but more importantly than that, we have to design a system that they can use for the next 25 years.
Donovan: Well, I’ll tell you what, Jeremiah, the more you talk about this it seems like there is just not one size fits all solution. Like, it’s just not out there, right? You kind of have to do an evaluation at the beginning, see what you’re dealing with. I know you and I were talking earlier that some of the things you have to consider is that weld fume used to be weld fume, but now sometimes its considered an explosive dust.
Jeremiah: We just had our seminar here with the industry expert on combustible dust. We’re always trying to brush up our skills here and keep our sales team and our engineers on point with what the industry is doing and to make sure we are doing things to code. We talk about it alot. That’s one fo the first things we do. We say, “Have you had your dust tested?” Of course in the welding industry or metal manufacturing people just look at you funny because “Well we’re welding carbon steel,” you know? Up until about five or six years ago we used to kind of think the same way. “Well we’re welding carbon steel.” I get that in wood, or I get that in sugar, or I get that in whatever.
Donovan: Cornstarch.
Jeremiah: Cornstarch, of course. All these big ones. Carbon steel weld fume I don’t get it. What happens is there are byproducts in there, there’s oil sometimes in there. The metal can oxidize. Theres different things that can cause combustion in weld fume. Some of our biggest accounts now, multi-billion dollar companies, are saying that’s our standard. We’re at 70 KST and that’s what’s we want to do. We like to bring it to the light and do what’s right for the customer.
Donovan: That probably also comes into consideration when you’re thinking about what solution you need. That would determine whether you need your collector inside, you need it outside. It’s not just as simple as sticking something on there to suck it up like a shop vac would do. You need to know what you’re dealing with the have the right solution.
Jeremiah: You bet. I mean, we could have another five podcasts on combustible dust and NFPA. Since this is weld fume and weld cells that we’re talking about here. When you do combustible dust and you’re trying to put the collector inside NFPA states something like if it can be outside it should be outside. That “should” means that if at all possible we can engineer around and get it outside we should. Sometimes you just can’t, it’s not possible. Big automotive plants or forklift companies just to name a couple. It really needs to be inside next to the robot.
Donovan: What do you do when you have explosive dust inside? That sounds like a real hazard. What do you do in that situation?
Jeremiah: To the point where some of our top customers, you know, they’re putting in a $100,000 weld fume system and they’re not upset at all about adding another $40,000 worth ofcombustible dust isolation type equipment. Chemical type isolation or mechanical. So, that’s how real it is, you know? I just want to say that. What we do in that case it put explosion vents on it and vent it to the roof. That’s one possibility. You need to isolate the inlet so the explosion or flame front doesn’t mitigate back through the hood, back to the robot or worker. So we’d put an isolation valve on that. In addition to that, there’s things like our new product, the Rhino Drum. Have you heard about it?
Donovan: I’ve heard about it, yeah.
Jeremiah: So, it’s a good product. It’s the first ever tool free, combustible dust tested 55 gallon drum. It’s designed to stop an explosion from the discharge of the dust collector. Now we’ve put an isolation valve on the inlet side. We’ve got the Rhino Drum or an Airlock on the discharge side. After that we’ve got the collector itself to deal with the explosion. So you can either vent through the roof or if you can’t vent through the roof you can put a flameless vent on there. You can look on the website and see what that is. Chemical isolation is also a real nice, easy way to deal with things.
Donovan: I would imagine that whatever collector you have in there, whether its ours or someone else’s you want to make sure that that thing can handle an explosive dust. You have workers. You have equipment. You have everything that’s in real close proximity to that. You can’t just put anything in there is what I’m saying.
Jeremiah: That’s a good point. We take that extremely seriously, to the point where on our first testing that we ever did we spent well over a quarter of a million dollars. That’s been a while back. When we first started getting our equipment tested by a third party, what we wanted to do was make sure it can withstand an explosion.
Donovan: If you’re designing a system, if you’re looking at designing a system when you’re going to have to get one, these are all things you need to consider. You can’t just go buy a used collector from the eighties and hope that its going to handle what you’re doing.
Jeremiah: Yeah, you’re obviously risking a lot if you were to do that. I think, you know, consult, whether its us, consult with a professional or another dust collection company and just do your homework. Make sure that they’ve done their homework. We did, you know, the first go around was a quarter million dollars. We’ve done many since then. I don’t know how much money we have wrapped up in making sure that our collectors and our equipment meet the standards, that it will withstand an explosion at the rating we put on our equipment.
Donovan: So once you have the layout, how you’re going to put the collector, where you’re going to install it, how do you even know how big of a collector or how small of a collector you need? How do you figure that out?
Jeremiah: Theres a couple different things you have to take into consideration. Obviously, you know, like I said earlier, are the parts sticky? Is there oil? A lot of times in stamping applications there are release oils on there, lubricants on there. So that can get kind of messing when you’re welding it. Thats something to consider. How many, if they’re running MIGs on robots, is there one MIG, or is there four MIGs in there per robot? So these are things we look at. Ambient systems will take a different air to cloth ratio than maybe a close capture one would. We basically have internal formulas where we decide if its a robot cell, how many air changes do we put in that robot cell to make sure that no smoke gets out? Thats the idea, really, that you just don’t want any smoke getting out of that cell. That’s obviously good for the safety of the people. It’s good housekeeping. You want to make sure all your bearings and seals and all that stuff on your equipment that you spend a lot of money on lasts a long time.
Donovan: So, just to kind of go back we’re going to walk through step by step. First thing you have to do is get someone in there to look at the system, to see what you’re dealing with, to see what kind of dust you have, to see if its explosive, right? So that’s kind of step one. Step two is once you’re in there, you see what kind of system requirements you have. It might be an ambient system. It might be a source capture system. It could be little bit of both, right?
Jeremiah: Right.
Donovan: From that, you go to the actual size of the collector and kind of see what you need to make it safe.
Jeremiah: It’s pretty easy, really. I could see where if you don’t do it day to day it could be overwhelming or feel overwhelming when you see it. When you see smoke, that’s an opportunity to call us, or call anybody for that matter. Get an expert on the phone and bring them in. We try to make it really easy to do business with us. That’s a big deal for us around here. The last thing we want is for our customer to be struggling. We kind of take all that off their plate.
Donovan: We have guys like you. We have other guys out in our shop that have been doing it for a long time, and have a wealth of knowledge here to help out anybody who is trying things out.
Jeremiah: We have sales engineers all over. We have them here and remote. We have a big network of representatives across the map. We can cover you for sure.
Donovan: We don’t want anybody to feel like they have to tackle this on their own. A lot has changed over the years. Some information is still good. Some of its old. We want to make sure you’re making the right decisions and making sure everybody is safe and have a good clean work environment and that’s what we’re here to do. That’s what our goal is as a company, to promote the health and safety of those who are working in your environment.
Jeremiah: I think it’s big too, from my standpoint. I’m the owner of the company and for me it’s always fun bringing people in the plant. You can say all day long that you really care about your people. You can brag about your machinery. You can brag about work you put out. You know, whatever that might be. When it really speaks volumes is when you’ve spent $100,000, or $10,000. Don’t get me wrong; it could be a lot less. A mid sized system may be $100,000 just to clean up the work environment. I mean, you may have spent $100,000 on a plasma table, but if that shop is full of brown smoke, what message is that sending to your customers, and your employees for that matter? I always think about it this way. These guys go home to their families at night. They’re bringing that weld fume into their home. They’re doing laundry. They go and hug their kids at night, and I kind of feel like its my responsibility to make sure that they’re not bringing this dirt home. That they’re not bringing this dust home. I feel pretty good about that.
Donovan: We want to help other people be able to have that in their facility too.
Jeremiah: Absolutely.
Donovan: Hopefully this has helped you if you’re out there looking for a weld fume system. We hope you’re able to figure out a little bit closer to what your requirements are. It might seem overwhelming. It’s not really that complicated of a process. Don’t feel like you’re on your own out there. We’re here. We’re glad to help you. Feel free to give us a call. Check out our website. Drop a line. We’re glad to help. Theres people here all the time. Jeremiah, thanks for coming on.
Jeremiah: You bet.
Donovan: Thanks for taking something that seems a little complicated and making it simpler so we all can understand it. Write in your questions to dustyjobspodcast@isystemsweb.com. If you have other questions about how other systems are designed. Maybe if you have another application. We’re glad to tackle that for you and help you feel like you’re not out there on your own.
Jeremiah: Yeah, for sure.
Donovan: Thanks for listening this time, and we’ll talk to you again.
Narrator:Thanks for listening to the Dusty Jobs Podcast. Breathe better, work safer.
Tomm Frungillo from Imperial Systems joins us from his home to talk about innovation. Tomm talks about our flagship product the CMAXX Dust and Fume Collector and how it is always in a state of improvement. Donovan and Tomm also speak on the culture of Imperial Systems and how it revolves around safety and efficiency for the customer.
Dusty Jobs Podcast Episode 5 – Innovation with Tomm Frungillo
Narrator: Welcome to the Dusty Jobs Podcast from Imperial Systems. Industry knowledge to make your job easier and safer.
Donovan: Hello, and welcome to another Dusty Jobs Podcast. We’re still here in our homes filming today because of the coronavirus. On today we have Tomm. Tomm, how are you doing?
Tomm: I’m doing well, Donovan. I hope you are, and I’m glad to be here with you.
Donovan: Yeah, glad to be here with you too. Tomm, where are you sitting right now?
Tomm: I’m in North Carolina, my home office. As you know, I’m up there about a week a month, normally, and traveling all over the country other times, but like everybody else we’re at home and getting things done.
Donovan: Yeah, so Tomm’s here to join us today. Tomm, tell us a little bit about your role with Imperial Systems.
Tomm: Thank you. I’ve been with Imperial close to two years now as director of sales and marketing. I’m really trying to, along with that, spearhead innovation with the company and coming up with new and better ideas to serve our markets.
Donovan: Yeah, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. Innovation; some of the ones we’ve done in the past but mostly the ones we’ve done real recently. Let’s start out with where our innovations started in the past, Tomm. You’ve been in the industry, like you said, for a long time. What some things that you notice that have been pretty innovative about Imperial Systems in the past.
Tomm: Well I think when you look at the history of the company it started with innovation and creating a rep firm that turned into a systems organization that turned into an equipment manufacturer and I think its always kind of reinventing itself. About ten years ago the flagship product, the CMAXX, was created and there were a lot of innovative things. It wasn’t the first cartridge dust collector in the history of the marketplace, but it was an innovative collector with things that were designed into it. I came on to kind of continue to spearhead the culture of innovation and creating new and better equipment and new and better things for the marketplace.
Donovan: I know as I came on with Imperial one of the things that I appreciated was that how the stories I was told from the past on how the innovation was done really for the benefit of the end user. One of the things I always loved to hear is that ours has a domed roof and that came from one of our end users down in Florida who was always having rain water sit on top of their machine and said, “Hey, is there a way you guys can help me out with this?” And we came up with the domed roof. Theres a lot of different features like that that are already integrated into the machine. Just in the last year we came out with a couple new ones that I think are just great and I was hoping you could unpack those for me today Tomm.
Tomm: Yeah, well there are several. Every manufacturer of equipment or otherwise is looking, especially in this day of lean manufacturing, is trying to do things better, more efficiently. So, I think anything a manufacturer can do to help benefit the manufacturer is great. But ultimately, what we try to do, is figure out what we can do, what we can come up with that’s new, that’s benefiting the end user. Thats the important thing. So that’s the way we approached it for many years now, and certainly the past two years since I’ve been here where we’ve come up with improvements to our flagship CMAXX product, specifically the Safety Pentagon, that are five safety items that improve the end users position. That maintenance worker that has to change cartridges. Instead of looking at just how it benefits us, its always looking at how it benefits that customer.
Donovan: What are the five things that were changed out recently that make it a better and safer product for our end user.
Tomm: Sure. The main ones I think are the anti-ramp lift rails. So if you’re installing a cartridge it goes in and one goes behind it. In the past, even on our old ones and everything that’s out here in the marketplace now, you have the opportunity to ramp one cartridge pan onto the other in traditional designs. We’ve eliminated that. It’s very important so the customer is not ramping which can release dust and toxins into the air if its not seated properly. Another one is the fact that in previous units you could close the door and not have the cartridges seated properly. In one of the Safety Pentagon items we eliminate that from happening. Those are the kinds of things we look at to make sure that from an end user, from a maintenance guy’s standpoint you make it as easy and as safe as possible for them.
Donovan: Yeah, I’d say that is one of my favorite features. Theres three different ways, that if its not in there right, its going to keep that door from closing. What a better way to know if somethings not right, if the door doesn’t close? If you can’t get the door closed, you know somethings not going right.
Tomm: That’s right.
Donovan: It’s just exciting to see stuff like that, and I happen to be there during one of our brainstorming sessions internally. We were just looking at the machine and coming up with the door stop on the lift rail. It’s just great to see that at our company its not just a bunch of engineers sitting a room thinking about it. We were having a meeting with our service techs, with our sales department, and all the guys from engineering and that’s where that idea came from. I’m glad to know that you’re here to continue that on. I know you have a couple strategies for that too, right Tomm?
Tomm: Well, yeah. We’ve created a culture of innovation. So, this is not only basically sitting our whole group, not only our engineering group, our sales and marketing group, our service group, we sit down as you know, once a quarter and analyze where we are with certain things, what’s really good, what can be improved on, and then come up with improvements on existing equipment. In addition to that, what’s new? What haven’t we thought of yet? What’s going to be the CMAXX of five years from now? Ten years from now? So, its really creating a culture of innovation. That’s important. As you know, we meet on that quarterly. In addition to that, we are always asking our customers how we can make things better. Customers come up with great ideas and we try to implement those ideas.
Donovan: I’m looking over your shoulder there and I see the Shadow hanging up there. That’s one of those ideas that came from a request from one of our customers, if I remember correctly. Isn’t that right?
Tomm: Absolutely. A customer that we’ve done some work with and wanted to do more work with. We said, “Hey, where are we lacking? What would you like that we’re not providing?” They said, “We would like a small footprint, short profile, price point focused unit on particular cutting tables that we have. We don’t want this thing to be a monstrosity. We want the focus to be on our product. We want your product to be in the background, kind of in the shadows.” And so we came up with the product called the Shadow, which doesn’t overtake the money making product of the customer, which is the cutting table, but it’s a plug play, meaning that they can bring this thing right in, run power and air to it, ductwork, and it’s ready to go.
Donovan: Nice
Tomm: Yeah. It’s a short profile, it sits in the background. Turn the switch on and it runs. It does it’s job and its at a price point that they can swallow.
Donovan: Now through the innovation of building that machine I know that we designed it for that application, but we’ve found a bunch of different uses for it. It can handle weld smoke. It can handle a lot of different things. Where that product started and where it might end up are totally different spots.
Tomm: Well that’s very true. We are going to limit it in footprint because originally we wanted to keep it size limited. So, like on the CMAXX where we can go to one hundred and twenty cartridges or more, this is going to be limited to a six cartridge unit. There is a six, a two, and a four cartridge unit.
Donovan: Now, are there any other limitations on it?
Tomm: Well, there is. Part of it being a price point unit is that we’re not building it like we do the CMAXX, which is very heavy duty. So, it’s not able to handle combustible dust. That’s one of the limitations. It’s not meant to do that.
Donovan: I know that we have a lot of customers that deal with combustible dust. Speaking of that, we had a customer come to us not too long ago and talk to us about how they are having issues with their rotary airlock valves on their combustible dust.
Tomm: More often than not we’re dealing with combustible dust and the CMAXX does a great job with that. The BRF, another product, does a good job with that. One of our biggest clientele is in the blasting industry and they’re dealing with potentially combustible dust. Traditionally they’ve always had to put cast rotary airlocks, NFPA compliant, expensive, rotary airlocks on the bottom of their dust collectors. So, customers came to us and said, “Hey, are there some options here other than that?” So, again, back to the innovation drawing board came the Rhino Drum. That is a drum set up kit that is able to handle an ST-1 combustible dust, and do it safely, and meet NFPA compliance.
Donovan: I’ll tell you what, Tomm. Personally, since I’ve had the opportunity to demo that, and use it in the field, some of the features on it that I love, that we didn’t even have to do but we did anyways; the way the lid slides out of place and makes it easy to slide the drum out. That personally is my favorite feature on it. It just makes it so much easier than trying to monkey with some chains or other stuff. That’s what I’ve enjoyed about the Rhino Drum. Not to take away from the safety of that product as much as the safety of the person that’s using it, that they’re not dealing with that airlock. They’re also safe from any explosion. I mean, I’ve seen the videos. We blew that thing up.
Tomm: Yeah, of course it’s always fun to test those things for combustibility and explosion protection. I think as you know we’ve sold some Rhino Drums to not explosive applications too just because of the ease of that twist lock. People like that better than the traditional drum cover kit. Aside from that, it’s substantially cheaper than and NFPA compliant airlock. It’s very safe and addresses that ST-1 dust. So it’s a really nice product. Simple, but innovative and nice.
Donovan: One of the product I like too is when we’re talking about the hopper, and where things build up, is our Dust Level Sensor. That to me is really great. I know I’ve talked to some customers in the past, and Tomm, I’m sure you’ve seen this too, where the problem they have with their dust collector is that unfortunately no one is checking to see if they’re cleaning out the hopper. Man, that causes some issues.
Tomm: Well, it can. You know, you build up material in your drum, which if not checked can go into your hopper which can then go into your cartridge area. I have, and you probably have Donovan, most people who have been in the industry a while, cleaning out a dust collector manually is no fun. So, ideally you want to know what level of dust is in your drum, is in your collection device, and that’s what the Dust Level Sensor does. It does it at a price point that’s attractive. There have been other options out there on the marketplace. The good ones are expensive, and the bad ones don’t work very well. We’ve come up with a good combination that works well and is not very expensive. Again, we were looking at what the end user asks for and needs.
Donovan: Yeah, and one of my favorite features on that one is that it has an output so that it can do anything. Once that bin hits a certain level, it can turn your machine off, it can send a horn out, it can put a light out, whatever you wire it to. It’s just to make sure that its a safe and clean environment for whoever going out there, that its not building up. Ultimately, it’s saving your machine and saving downtime.
Tomm: Exactly. Again, the benefit of the customer. What are they looking for? What do they need improvements on? That’s the culture we’re trying to build here, the culture of innovation, the culture of continuous improvement. I think that we’ve done that, but like always, it can always be better. It can always be improved upon. So, that’s what we strive to do on a daily basis.
Donovan: Exactly. If you’re listening to this out there and you have some questions or you have some issues that you’d like us to help you solve, feel free to contact us. Write in. We’re always innovating. We’re always trying to make things a safer and healthier environment for you out there working, and working on dust collectors. If there is a way we can help do that for you, we’re glad to come up with that next product, that next solution for whatever going on. Tomm, anything else you want to say about this?
Tomm: I appreciate the time. I think we’re going to do more of these. I think, hopefully, that they’re informative for folks in the industry about technology and innovation, and of course about our products and how we think they’re the best in the industry. So I’ve loved doing this, and I’d be glad to do it again Donovan. I appreciate the time.
Donovan: Yeah, thanks for coming on Tomm, and thanks for listening.
Tomm: Thank you.
Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Dusty Jobs Podcast. Breathe better, work safer.
Need to address indoor air quality so that viruses, pollen, and other unhealthy particulates are removed? Then use the mobile, self-cleaning, plug-n-play Shadow particulate filter for viruses and bacteria.
While in industrial, light industrial, and commercial environments, employees must work in a safe, clean air space. Because of this, the Shadow self-cleaning, portable particulate filter may be a great fit. It was originally developed as a fume extractor for welding and also laser cutting applications. But its features also make it a viable solution for filtering viruses and bacteria in many indoor spaces. More specifically, it has high filtration efficiency, a small physical size, and is designed for easy installation.
Although relatively compact, it offers 2,400 CFM (cubic feet per minute) to 3,200 CFM of HEPA (High Efficient Particulate Air) level filtration. In other words, this captures 99.97% of .3 to 3-micron particulate based on particle count. In a space that is 20’ long x 20’ wide x 15’ high (6,000 ft³), the air could be exchanged or recirculated 32 times per hour.
Whether it is pressurizing the space or pulling air out of the space and recirculating that air, the portable self-cleaning Shadow does the job as a filter for viruses and bacteria. Furthermore, a continuous pulse cleaning system keeps the filter operating efficiently.
. 
Dust Hazard Analysis from a Pro
