TPT January 2022

I NT ERV I EW

Airmo Inc

By 1969, the business experienced rapid growth and a move to a 3,600ft 2 facility in Blaine, Minnesota increased production space with improved product testing capability. The company continued to advance, requiring another move in 1987 to its current location in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. The new 14,000ft 2 facility provided room for modern CNC machining centres, production assembly operations and R&D services. Then in 1995, the company name was changed to Airmo Inc Pressure Technologies ® to adapt to industry changes and modern day branding practices. Today, Airmo Inc Pressure Technologies continues to focus on supporting our customer’s business goals. Whether you are located in our community or around the globe, you can count on quality products and personalised service from Airmo. n What are the main projects or innovations you are working on at the moment? Our hydrostatic testing tools are continually being modified to accommodate changing tubing alloys. Our hydrostatic pressure testing systems, endforming systems and expansion systems are being integrated with advanced touch screen digital displays. The other areas of innovation are working with different mediums which can be as simple as water or deionised water to corrosive fluids as well as inert gases such as nitrogen and helium to find extremely small leaks in tubes or assemblies. This means our tools cannot have any leaks whatsoever. Our products are also used in extreme hot or cold temperatures, at high pressures which takes some expertise to do. n What are the future plans for your company? Do you see a lot of potential for growth in the regions and markets that you serve? Because of our 75-year history, we have a great reputation in the market for the durability and safety of our products. Our products can be found around the globe providing solutions to customers in the HVACR, energy, transportation and aerospace industries. There has been a lot of movement of employees within the same industries. When an employee moves from one company to another within the same market and has used our products, it is not unusual for that employee to introduce our products to their new working company. This automatically increases our market share. We also have many domestic customers that have divisions in other parts of the world and because of the successful use of our products in the domestic company, their overseas divisions will also have our products. Additionally, we will continue to reach out to more markets with advertising and digital media. n What’s the most enjoyable thing about your job and working in your current role? I can speak about this all day long. We’re a relatively small company. Therefore, our organisation is flat, which allows me to connect with customers daily. Often times customers come to us because they can’t find a solution for their application with anyone else.

Each and every day, I can see something that our products have made safer, better, and faster. Whether it’s an air conditioner, heating system, fossil fuel being pumped on the ground, oil rig out over water, airplanes flying, or even a rocket being launched – our company has directly contributed to the success of those products or programs. Many major companies seek us to help them in the development of their products. Each day is exciting to be involved with our technology supporting our customers. Our employees also get caught in the excitement when they see how the products they worked on are helping these programs. Again, I can continue to answer this question all day long. n What is the toughest aspect of your job? And what is the most difficult thing about being in a position of responsibility? As you know, our products operate at high pressures up to 60,000 PSI with different mediums (liquid and gas) at different temperatures. We need to ensure our products are safe, easy to use and maintain. We must make sure our designs are proven and the manufacturing processes are following all tolerances and processes, involving a rigorous testing process. Let me express this one more time – 100 per cent of all of our products get tested and the results are recorded. There are a lot of people thinking our products can be reverse engineered and there are copy-cats that someone may use and get seriously hurt when it fails. If – or when – it fails, we need to make sure our company does not get blamed for the incident. We have both US and international patents including in Asia and Europe, but it is a constant battle trying to protect our Intellectual Property. We’ve taken security measures to protect our products and we can identify counterfeit product fairly easy. We just don’t want anyone getting hurt or worse. n What’s the most exciting project you have been involved in during your career so far? I’ve been working for many decades with this type of technology with different companies. When we’re working

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JANUARY 2022