Compressed Air Best Practices-August 2008

Focus Industry COMPRESSED AIR AUDITS | 08/08 | Building at Cummins-Wagner BY COMPRESSED AIR BEST PRACTICES™ Compressed Air Best Practices™ spoke with Mark Shaffer (Compressed Air Product Specialist) from Cummins-Wagner Company, Inc. Good morning. Please describe the Cummins-Wagner Company. Good morning. CumminsWagner is a wholesale distributor of industrial process equipment and plumbing and heating equipment. The company is also engaged in the assembly and after-market repair and service of these products. We are active in the mid-Atlantic area, primarily Maryland, Virginia, Washington D.C., Delaware, central Pennsylvania and northeastern West Virginia. We believe that our company has a unique ability to build long-term relationships with our customers, our vendors and with each employeeowner in our company. It is nurturing these relationships which has allowed us to just surpass $50 million in sales in the fiscal year that just ended — a growth rate of over 7% in the past year. Please describe your relationships with your customers. Cummins-Wagner places the highest value on our relationships with our customers. Our sales engineers/owners have an average tenure of 17 years with our company. That means we have an average of 17 years of relationship building with our customers. We are long-standing members in many engineering associations and have had a regular attendance over the years at dozens of area trade shows. Even with today’s technology, people like to do business with people that they know, like and trust. A unique attribute we have is our willingness to do engineering work for our customers. Ray Peloquin, an engineer and 30-year veteran employee, will do the engineering and CAD work for heat transfer, air compressors, blowers and pump systems. We will design and fabricate custom packages for customers. This saves them valuable installation and engineering time. We have four people dedicated to working with engineering firms. Richard Goins, the head of this group, has been with us for 30 years and belongs to all of the area engineering societies. These capabilities have helped us build very strong value-adding relationships. How would you describe the evolution of your distribution? We think it plays a role. All 112 of us are employee-owners. Our employeeowners are extremely motivated and always take that extra step for our customers. We are an “ESOP” company with 100% of the common stock exclusively owned by the Employee Stock Ownership Trust (ESOT). The business was started, in 1960, by Mr. Charles Cummins and Mr. Charles Wagner. In 1985, following 25 years of stable growth and with a desire for business continuity for the benefit of all employees, both men sold their majority stock interest to the Cummins-Wagner ESOT. Both Mr. Cummins and Mr. Wagner continue to serve on our Board of Directors. Where are your operations? We operate three facilities located in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania. The Maryland (Annapolis Junction) operations are housed in a 31,000 square foot building owned by the company. It houses the corporate staff and supports the sales and service operations with a warehouse and fullservice shop. The Virginia (Ashland) and Pennsylvania (Elizabethtown) facilities have 9,000 and 13,500 square feet respectively dedicated to office, warehousing and a service shop. We also have sales offices in Warrenton, Chesapeake and Winchester, Virginia and in Williamsport and Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. www .aii rbe stpracti bt tices.com 41 http://www.airbestpractices.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Compressed Air Best Practices-August 2008

Compressed Air Best Practices- August 2008 Contents From the Editor Utility-Air News The August Audit of the Month: A Vacuum System Audit Energized for Savings at Seattle City Light and Tacoma Power Know Your System CASE: Compressed Air Supply Efficiency Ecos Air: Managing Incentive Programs Kaeser Compressors: Loyalty, Energy and Growth Building Relationships at Cummins-Wagner McIntire is Moving Forward The 2008 A.I.C.D. Conference & Exhibition Tuthill Vacuum and Blower Systems Resources for Energy Engineers: Training Calendar & Product Picks Wall Street Watch Advertiser Index Job Market

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