We had the chance to have an extended talk with Matt Lindstedt, President of Advanced Plating Technology in Milwaukee, about how the 2009 decision to reconfigure how the Milwaukee-based plating company worked with its customers and end OEMs has changed their company. “Those were hard years because you didn't know if what we were doing was working,” says Lindstedt, who succeeded his father, John, as president of the company. His brother, James, works alongside him as the Vice President of Engi...

Not every offspring of a surface finishing company owner is destined to follow in their parent’s footsteps, work their way onto the shop floor, and eventually sit in an executive’s chair. For Ross Henry of ChromeTech in Franklin, Wisconsin, following in those footsteps would have meant unlacing his ice skates and chucking his Bauer stick, but a potential hockey career staved that off for some time. “I’ve been away from home playing on youth teams in other states since I was a teenager,” says ...

We chat with Kandarp Patel, who purchased Somerville Plating in Melrose Park, Illinois in mid-2024 Somerville Plating is a Nadcap-certified operation with over 44 years in the finishing industry. “We were looking for something in manufacturing, and we realized that a lot of it has been moving around because of the competitive risks of moving it to Mexico and China,” Patel says. “However, plating is a very local business, and it seemed that this business is always needed for the local in...

Judy Runge’s metallurgical engineer and surface finishing expert career spans almost 40 years in industrial, government, and academic professional settings. She worked at Northrop’s Defense Systems Division, Taussig Associates, Inc., Saporito Plating, Argonne National Laboratory, and recently retired as a Principal Engineer for Surface Finishing at Apple. Dr. Runge still maintains her consulting company, CompCote International, where she works with OEMs and finishing operations on various pro...

Mike Petrey is Plant Manager at powder coater Prism Technologies in Redford, Michigan, which was founded in 1997 as a small family company with two employees and 2,500 square feet. The founder, Eric Felton Sr., had a history with powder manufacturing and quality control with Glidden paints. He branched into consulting and assisted in powder line set-ups and troubleshooting all over the country, Petrey says. Today, his son, Eric Jr., owns the facility with six spray booths, one conveyor ...

Alan Henry is the owner of ChromeTech of Wisconsin, an ISO-certified industrial plating operation that he founded in 1984. The company specializes in hard chrome, sulfamate nickel, electroless nickel, and nickel-chrome plating. The ChromeTech company is indeed a family affair; in addition to Alan, his wife, Vickie, and son, Zach, work there, and sister Adrianna also helped with marketing, writing, and photography throughout her high school and college years and even now. A decade ago, they ad...

Jesse Heines of Digger Specialties is the Corporate Powder Coating and Project Manager for the railing, fencing, and column manufacturer with various locations around the U.S. Loren “Digger” Graber founded his outdoor living and maintenance-free products in 1984, starting as a manufacturer of vinyl fencing and various other related maintenance-free products. Under his leadership, DSI has become one of North America's leading aluminum railing manufacturers for decks and porches. The com...

Ross Peterson is the Chief Business Development Officer of ProPlate, an Anoka, Minnesota, company that finishes specialty items for the medical and surgical industry. In this podcast, Ross explains how ProPlate works closely with the medical community to come up with new finishes and coatings for critical medical parts. For example, ProPlate spent over a year developing a process to finish neodymium iron boron magnets, which can be up to 10 times stronger than the best ceramic magnets. ...

Navin Mangrue is Sales Manager for Professional Powder Coating located in Etobicoke, Ontario, a family-run shop in Toronto that is ready to coat anything that might need to survive in treacherous climate. “About 99% of what we powder coat is going to be sitting outside all day and all night and for years to come,” says Navin Mangrue, Sales Manager for Professional Powder Coating located in Etobicoke, Ontario. “So we are catering to rust, we're catering to blasting, and we're catering to galva...

New England Electropolishing owners Amy Prigmore and Luke Almeida discussed how their company in Fall River, Massachusetts, has evolved since their parents founded it in 1985. Alvin and Jeannine Almeida founded NEE and slowly grew the business over the next several decades. Al Almeida kept his day job distributing chemicals, and NEE had just two employees who performed the work Al brought to them. Read the full article at https://finishingandcoating.com/index.php/plating/2049-with-one-focus-...