56. Building KromAmericas with Chris Gordon

January 22, 2026

Eric Johnson and Chris Gordon discuss various aspects of flame safety, gas filters, and the combustion industry. They explore the different product lines for flame safeguards, the importance of filtering gas to protect valves, and the future growth opportunities in South America for KromAmericas. The discussion also covers the significance of on-site education, common technical mistakes, and strategies for attracting talent in the combustion field. Additionally, they emphasize the need for a strong online presence and the importance of customer-centric support in the industry.

https://www.kromamericas.com

Episode Transcript

Eric Johnson (00:00)
I want to bring you on the podcast cause you are part of KromAmericas and

talking about KromAmericas and your experience, and your experiences are a little unique because you are not, to my knowledge, brought up and started in combustion. You've only recently gotten into it, so I kinda wanna hear a little bit about that and essentially how you found and ended up at KromAmericas. and correct me if I'm wrong,

not knowing anything about combustion.

Chris Gordon (00:38)
That is a fair assessment. ⁓ Yeah. So before KromAmericas. So I started KromAmericas in 2020. I'll give you a little bit of history how we got there. But before that I was in software. So I ran a software implementation team for a few different startup companies in Indianapolis. I thought that was my career path. Got my PMP project management professional certification. ⁓

Just loved it. Loved everything about the software world, running a team. But the organizations kept getting bigger and bigger. I was employee 17, went through a couple acquisitions and 12, 1500 employees later, I realized, okay, what's next? So I started looking, not aggressively, just seeing what was out there. I've got a men's group that meets on Tuesday mornings from our church.

We'd meet at six o'clock, drink coffee, ⁓ harass each other and just do that sort of thing and talk. And my pastor said, hey, because I told him I was going to have an interview that afternoon for a company. He said, hey, why don't you reach out to this guy named Ken Bradway.

who owns Loy Instrument, who ultimately founded KromAmericas, reach out to him. He's looking at somebody to start this company called KromAmericas. He's looking for somebody that can run it. I said, OK. And I know a guy. He's my Sunday School teacher. So calling him on the way home, was like, hey, I heard you're starting a company. He's like, yeah. He's like, you know who the best person would be that would run this company? I'm like, what? Who? He's like, you would. But.

You're probably not looking and I don't want to pull you away. So actually, let's talk. ⁓ So a couple of months later, I started as it's kind of employee number one as the business manager at KromAmericas. Yeah. So what you said earlier, no combustion experience, no knowledge in the combustion world. But it's been really cool just to see this whole world out there that I didn't know about or I'd never been to a founder. I don't even know what a foundry was.

Eric Johnson (02:32)
you

Chris Gordon (02:49)
Boilers, well, I don't know what boilers do. ⁓ All that stuff. It's very eye opening, so it's been a really fun ride. ⁓

Eric Johnson (02:59)
Yeah,

I, well I think real quickly to all the people out there who live and breathe combustion, he expressed it right then and there. He had no idea what combustion was or like the whole industry behind it. We are a hidden industry and if you think you're advertising, no you're not. You're not doing it enough until your kids,

Chris Gordon (03:16)
Yep, absolutely.

Eric Johnson (03:25)
sports teams know what you do and all the kids know exactly what you do. You're not advertising enough.

So, KromAmericas employee number one, can you give a brief background on what the relationship of KromAmericas versus KromSchroder and Honeywell is?

Chris Gordon (03:35)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

yep, you bet. So Honeywell acquired KromSchroder back in 2015 through an acquisition through Elster or with Elster. KromSchroder goes back to the 1860s, like 1865 is when they were founded. So old company that started with gas meters. So they were building gas meters. That's how they entered the market and eventually started building burners. ⁓

safety shutoff valves, pressure switches, all that stuff. So it's a well established company that Honeywell acquired. Honeywell though didn't do a whole lot with it. Trying to sell a German product in the United States without any idea how to manage inventory or inability, Honeywell being the size they are, they're not a stocking company. So everything that their sales guys were ⁓ selling,

It was six, eight, 12 weeks to get it from Germany over to the United States. So, Honeywell realized if we're gonna make this product line successful, we need somebody in United States that's willing to put some stuff on the shelves to make this company work. So they reached out to Ken Bradway, ⁓ who owns Loy Instrument, a local combustion distributor.

service company within central Indiana, Indianapolis, the east side of Indianapolis. Said, hey, we want to start this other company. Would you be interested in taking it on, becoming a master distributor for KromSchroder? He said, sure. So we bought a bunch of inventory. And that's it. Best time to start a business is right in the middle of COVID.

world shuts down. So we were placing orders. They were sitting up in customs in Chicago for two, three, four months, just trying to build up our inventory levels. It did take some time. But that's how KromAmericas got started is we believe in this product line. Honeywell believed in it. They needed to be able to get the product over here and find a company that was willing to put it on the shelves. And so that's what we've done.

Eric Johnson (06:05)
Yeah, that's super important. I get asked a lot, what's the best this, what's the best that? I'm like, well, the best product is the one that you can one, get, and then two, get some support for. And if you have to order a $200 part and it has to ship from Germany every single time, it can get really frustrating on the lead times. So bring it over and then so essentially you're stockpiling or forecasting.

the, what your part usage is gonna be over a couple months. And then you order crates of parts and stock them in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Chris Gordon (06:34)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

That's exactly right. So early on, we were placing orders with the factory in Germany every other day. Anything that was non-stock, most everything at that time was non-stock. just hadn't built up our inventory. But it got to the point where that was not manageable. We had hundreds of open POs and they were very hard to track on our end and on Honeywell's end and ultimately with the factory and lot to Germany. So we condensed that down a couple of years ago.

So we place one stock in order every month. And that order that we're placing is for what we're going to need six months from now. So we've got enough data. We know what the market wants. We're seeing trends. So we're always making sure that our top runners, there's at least six months on the shelf that we can fulfill orders. ⁓ And then once a week, we place an order for anything that's non-stock.

So those oddball parts, those RP threads from trains that come in from Europe and then you replace with parts or a specific flame rod that goes with a burner. Those are the types of orders we're placing once a week. So we've condensed from 20 to 30 POs a month down to five. One a week for non-stock items and then that monthly forecasting order that's placed every month.

Eric Johnson (08:01)
So what is your strategy or general strategy around or thought process? How do you stand up a company and service the customers of a, it's not like you're establishing a brand. You're establishing an American brand, but the product is already there and you're not designing the product. How do you go about educating?

Chris Gordon (08:23)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (08:29)
the American, and I also believe you do Mexico and Canada, is that, yeah, how do you go about educating your customers that ⁓ your relationship with KromSchroder and what KromAmericas is and grow a distribution network from that?

Chris Gordon (08:49)
Yeah.

Yeah, so one thing Honeywell is really good at is distribution networks. So the Honeywell Thermal solutions side has what we call channel partners. There's approximately 20, 25 channel partners across North America. And those are the Loy Instruments of that region. So those are the main folks.

or companies that we're going after, we want to get into their hands and then they can send it to end users, they can work with OEMs, spec out the projects. So because there was such a strong existing network,

we didn't have to immediately build out our externals or an outward facing ⁓ sales team. They were pretty much our sales team. We had to convince them and it's taken some work that, hey, if you sell this part, we're gonna be able to get it to you and we're gonna train you on it and make you comfortable with it. ⁓ But most of the distributors were already aware of KromSchroder because Honeywell had it. They just couldn't provide it since 2015. ⁓

So the learning curve hasn't been that huge of bringing a brand new product to market. We're just trying to reintroduce a product that's always been here, but now it's supported. So that's how we've approached distribution. ⁓ A lot of the OEMs already had components from furnaces or equipment that was brought in from Europe that had Kromschroder So we're able to get our foot in the door with resell, replacement.

⁓ And also one of our strengths, because I'm not strong on combustion, is we had to figure out how to be able to support. I didn't want to just be a, we're not just a ⁓ warehouse distribution company. We're also ⁓ trying to get the information out there of product literature, technical how-to, creating support videos. ⁓

So I've hired on tech team that can support that. So if a customer calls in and they need help specing out the size of a valve, we've got somebody on staff that can do that. I didn't want to just, again, be a reseller, just a box mover, right? I wanted to be a little bit more than that. And I think we've been able to accomplish that for the most part.

Eric Johnson (11:11)
Yeah, you do have a KromAmericas YouTube channel. If the people want to check that out, they put out some great videos. And they're very, very simple videos, which I like because I think a lot of companies overcomplicate the video aspect. And hey, we got to make something like cool and interesting, but just talking about the product and. ⁓

Chris Gordon (11:15)
We do, yeah, yeah.

Eric Johnson (11:36)
what you guys do is enough and that is interesting and educational, which is very important in 2026 for people who want to learn about a product to be able to see a video that is not like this giant scripted ad for a company. And it's like, well, that looks cool. It sounds cool, but that didn't really teach me about the product. But having, ⁓ I think you have two main people that talk.

Chris Gordon (11:51)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (12:03)
on the videos.

Chris Gordon (12:03)
I do.

Yeah. So you were right there at least early on. They were not scripted. They were ⁓ genuine. How about that? Like these are the guys that that that take the calls every day and hey what are you hearing? And they're like this is this is an issue we've seen. All right let's create a five minute video quick in and out video that somebody can jump in. They're a little bit more scripted now and a little more targeted. ⁓

because we just matured as an organization to do that. But yeah, Kevin and Logan are the two guys that are running with that information, or running with those videos.

Eric Johnson (12:38)
Yeah, ⁓ I did

meet them. I did have ⁓ the opportunity, amazing opportunity. I'm actually, I know I'm wearing a hoodie, I'm wearing my KromAmericas ⁓ shirt, but having the amazing opportunity to visit your office and to see the stockpiles on the shelf, which is amazing because...

Chris Gordon (12:48)
Look at that, I see it. I see the dashes.

Eric Johnson (13:06)
⁓ In the combustion industry and the industries that combustion supports, a lot of times it's not a cost factor. It's a, we need this now. And saying, we'll have that in three or four weeks is not a good answer. And they're just gonna find somebody else to.

Chris Gordon (13:16)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, we love having

people stop by, OEMs, ⁓ customers, because when they see it's one thing to say, hey, we have inventory. It's another to walk out this door here and see shelves and rows upon rows of six, eight months worth of supply. It really makes people realize, okay, this is really cool. These guys are doing some awesome stuff. I can trust that I'll be able to get a replacement part if I need it.

Eric Johnson (13:50)
Yeah, you got, I mean, you're living the whole brand. You got the artwork on the wall. You have the gas train, example gas train on the wall, which I think is super cool. I think a lot of companies ⁓ need to advertise more, it's, ⁓ it's just a gas valve. Well, you sell a gas valve. I think gas valves are cool. Why not make engineering drawings and hang them on the wall? It's cool.

Chris Gordon (13:55)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Eric Johnson (14:20)
That's

something you said you guys do, which is also, you support the products, but you also build gas trains and test those gas trains and then be able to have ⁓ drawings, 3D drawings or 2D drawings of the gas trains. Can you talk about that process? Say, hey, I want to order a gas train. How would I go about doing that?

Chris Gordon (14:47)
Yeah, so let me take a step back and talk about the one of our complications that we had to fix early on that'll lead to the gas drains. ⁓ KromSchroder has 33, 34,000 part numbers. So when we decide to be the master distributor, there's no way anybody can stock 34,000 parts and be successful at it.

So we had a little bit of analytical data that Honeywell was able to provide. We had a great growth leader at Honeywell that had his finger on the pulse and said, this is what you need to put on the shelf. But an example would be if you need a shutoff valve that has ⁓ half inch flanges coming in and half inch flange going out, that's a part number. That's a unique eight digit part number. We'll say you wanted to have that same valve body

but you needed an inch coming in and an inch going out. That was a totally separate part number. So you can see, or flame safety, I need a three second purge time, or I need a five second purge time. Those are two different part numbers. So what we did is we took all this information, the little bit of data we had, the input we were getting from some of our closer distributors that we talked with and said,

The strength of the KromSchroder product is its modularity. So let's exploit that. Let's take, I've got 900 part numbers out in the warehouse and that fulfills 85 % of our orders because we are taking the valve and ordering that from the factory. We're ordering boxes upon boxes of flanges and seal kits. ⁓

and pressure switches and pressure taps and then building them on demand. So when a customer calls in and says I need this like okay I can build that using a kit. So now we've got stuff on the shelf instead of them ordering that specific part number and the factory in Germany assembling it just give us the raw components we'll pop it together. So that leads to our gas trains. So we put flanges on we put ⁓ pressure switches on the front of our

gas trains and we need a way to test those. We know the components are good. They come in tested. German engineering, you know, at its finest They know if that component is good or bad before it goes out. But we need to make sure when we put components together, it's airtight. So we built a testing bench that you were able to see. We popped the valve train up there. We've got quick, quick release chucks on it with an air compressor, brings it up to pressure five pounds, holds it.

and are we seeing a drop in pressure or not. If we do, let's figure out where it's at. If we don't, green checkbox, it takes a screenshot. The tech team fills out a piece of paper, said, yep, this was configured the way it was ordered. I'm putting my signature on it because I stand behind it. This is going to make it there and it's going to hold pressure. ⁓ So that was how we initially started with kits. And then we started hearing from customers, hey, what...

build out the whole gas train segment, throw a regulator on it, throw a Y strainer, throw a drip lag. It's like, okay, yeah, we can do that. So that's what you were able to see is building out these complex gas trains. We got an order for an OEM for eleven gas trains last week. So guys are paint booth, paint the pipe, assembling it, and hopefully by the end of, it's Wednesday, hopefully by the end of this week, we start shipping those orders that are fully tested.

So it's again more than just moving boxes. It's solving problems. It's building out those complex assemblies.

Eric Johnson (18:37)
You made that testing process sound very simple. To the listeners, they have this custom PLC with screens, and as he said, they hook up the air and pressurize it, and then there's a decay test so that you shut off the air, and then it'll track if there's any leaks. I believe you can create a report from that.

Chris Gordon (18:48)
Yep.

It is, yeah.

Absolutely. at any time I can pop up, we use Google Drive here, pop up Google Drive, type in the order number and it'll show me a screenshot of that test. What time it was taken, if there was any loss of pressure, who the tech was, who the customer is. Yeah, you're right. You're right. It's pretty sophisticated. ⁓ We try to present it as simple like this is just part of our process. You know, the pride we're staying behind our work, but yeah, it did.

Took several months of testing it out, pulling in the right people to make sure that it was going to do what we wanted it to do. So ultimately we decided to build it in-house utilizing the loyal side of the company, the engineers over there that work on this sort of thing and build out a PLC and made it work.

Eric Johnson (19:54)
Yeah, it's a lot of upfront work, but it then allows you to do a very good job at creating a trackable, quality controlled process and document that can be done very quickly instead of, hook up an air chuck and then write down on this form that's been copied and faxed 3,000 times your initials and...

Chris Gordon (19:57)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (20:23)
you know, some data and you know, who did what and then stuff doesn't get filled out. You always want a repeatable process, especially when you're doing something over and over again. And that, when I saw that, that was very cool. I always love innovation like that and something that's semi-custom. It's not like you made anything amazing, but it solves the problem that...

can easily, know, customer gets a gas train and then it leaks day one. And they're like, ⁓ now they have a negative view of the product where you can go, hey, no, every gas train, here's the cert, ships, no leaks, and this is how we do it. And it just builds, ⁓ it gives me confidence behind that assembly. So then the design around it,

Chris Gordon (20:58)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Eric Johnson (21:21)
Are you creating or designing in-house and assembling the 2D and 3D models in-house?

Chris Gordon (21:31)
We sure are. So we have an engineer on staff that the technicians, Kevin and Logan, utilize. So they are the...

information gatherers gathering the requirements. What is your incoming pressure? What pressure do you need at the burner? What types of pressure switches do you need? We gather all that utilizing a form that we've put together again so it can be a repeatable process, right? Fill that out, turn that over to our engineer and he's able to pop those out depending on workload in a couple days. So that customer

Before they send us a P.O., they have a PDF in their hand that is a visual representation of what the gas train is going to look like down to measurements. ⁓ They send us a P.O. and before we begin building, they have to sign off on that drawing. So it removes that us shipping something and we didn't fully spec it out and the customer gets it and crap, what am I supposed to do with this? ⁓ taking the time up front to

to understand what they need, giving them that representation. And then after we ship it, we'll give them the step file as well so they can put that into their CAD drawing system ⁓ and play around with that.

Eric Johnson (22:49)
Yeah, they can add the step file and then add it to their design essentially to say, hey, this is exactly what it's gonna be. And then when the product shows up, it's exactly what the file is and there's no surprises or, we just changed this measurement because as you said, an OEM orders 10, 20 gas trains. They need to know what exactly is showing up because they're also building 10 to 20 units.

Chris Gordon (23:05)
Yep. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (23:18)
on top of that and this is just one tiny assembly in that unit for whatever they're using it for.

Chris Gordon (23:23)
Yeah, yeah. And it's an

expensive mistake to ship something, ship it incorrectly because we didn't ask the right questions or the customer thought we knew something. Then what do you do? You eat the cost of freight to ship this skid back, make the change and ship it out on your dollar. So by getting them to sign off and just having that mutual agreement, this is what we agree upon. It just eliminates that.

Eric Johnson (23:48)
What ⁓ going to like the products that KromSchroder is like, what would KromSchroder specialize in? Is it gas trains and burners? Is that what all the products revolve around?

Chris Gordon (24:06)
It is. So the strength or the workhorse is the safety shutoff valves. And then it builds upon it there. But I would say that is our main... What you see most in the market is our safety shutoff valves and the pressure switches.

Eric Johnson (24:25)
Do the safety shutoff valves, and I've always wondered this when a large company like Honeywell acquires other brands, do KromSchroder safety shutoff valves compete with Honeywell safety shutoff valves?

Chris Gordon (24:35)
Mm-hmm.

⁓ I think Honeywell has a lot of products that compete against each other in their portfolio. But our valves go up to seven pounds. That's what they're rated up to. So we don't compete with Maxon valves. If you've got high pressure coming in or something like that, you're going to use a Maxon valve every single day. So as far as in that specific range, that lower seven below pressure,

No, Honeywell doesn't really have anything else in its portfolio that I can think of that competes with that.

Eric Johnson (25:17)
⁓ The fluid valves, what are they? Yeah.

Chris Gordon (25:22)
No, fluid power actuators, V50s,

55s, 40, 55s, yeah. Yes, those are a good option for a crom shroder to come in and replace, and then you don't have to worry about the fluid actuators. We've been able to convert some customers to it.

Eric Johnson (25:39)
I would also say that those fluid powered valves are giant compared to the KromSchroder valves. And if you have a gas train or a tight environment, you can get a very, very compact gas train because ⁓

for the listeners, you'll have to go to KromAmericas and they've got pictures of their gas trains, it's like the valves bolt together. they also on their YouTube channel, they also have them bolting the valves together, but they bolt together with, I think O-rings, I believe. Is that correct?

Chris Gordon (26:21)
⁓ Yeah, they're bolts that go through the front and back of the valve and just kind of self-tighten ⁓ or pull that flange in tight. because it's, I guess, say it's tapered a little bit. Yeah, but you're right. I mean, the footprint of these things is very small. And that's one of the reactions we get when we set up a booth at a trade show is, hey, this is a NFPA valve train that's...

less than 12 inches, right? Less than that. If you're not counting the ball valves, very compact.

Eric Johnson (26:55)
And the pressure switches can get mounted right to the valve bodies as well,

Chris Gordon (27:01)
That's

right, so there's an automatic reset pressure switch that's ⁓ pretty small and it mounts right to the front of that gas valve.

Eric Johnson (27:12)
Yeah, that's just provides end users with a lot of options as far as modularity. what is your, who are your customers? What industries are we installing? You're more on the like industrial burner side and not really.

Chris Gordon (27:21)
Yep.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (27:37)
Boilers per se but what ⁓ what were your customers making or doing with these gas trains?

Chris Gordon (27:45)
Yeah, so being a master distributor, we don't always know where our products end up if we're selling to distributors. So distributors are going to put some stuff on the shelf and sell to their customers. ⁓ But as far as like OEMs, it's a lot of heat treat stuff. ⁓ I've been able to go on site and visit with a couple OEMs, visit some of these factories where these things are going. ⁓ So belt furnaces.

trying to think of a couple of other applications I've seen recently.

Eric Johnson (28:16)
Paint booths

powder coating, automotive.

Chris Gordon (28:19)
Yeah,

I would say yes, definitely automotive. We are working on a couple potential projects with some paint booths as well. That's why I hesitated there because I haven't seen the deal come in yet. Yeah, but I mean, basically any industrial where you have to apply some sort of heat, you're going to see some sort of chrome component. We're one of our competitors, right? Dungs is out there as well. Same sort of application.

Eric Johnson (28:46)
Yeah, I'm just trying to give the listeners

who don't know just an idea of what industrial gas trains are used for and what like what a foundry would do with a gas train and what automotive manufacturers do because, like automotive manufacturer, why would they need a gas train? Well, if you ever go into an automotive plant.

the amount of manufacturing that happens and they have to, they have heat areas and in order to provide heat, you need burners and when you have burner, you need a gas drain and that's.

Chris Gordon (29:17)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Yeah,

we've seen some applications where ⁓ it's not a KromSchroder burner, but it's a KromSchroder gas train and KromSchroder flame safety that's hundreds of feet long, right? There's so many burners and it's a roller type furnace, right? And it's taking a product and just slowly rolling it through and heating it up. And we see our gas trains on that all the time.

heating up these big kilns or heating up these long furnaces. It's great application.

Eric Johnson (29:56)
Are there, ⁓ I don't know a ton about it, but are there gas trains or a lot of gas train use in steelmaking?

Chris Gordon (30:05)
There sure is. Yep. Yep. A lot of it.

Eric Johnson (30:07)
All right.

And the the burners, what can you describe the style of burner that a couple styles that KromSchroder has?

Chris Gordon (30:24)
Yeah, we have, burners have been harder to stock because every burner is just custom, right? The length, how deep's the wall, ⁓ all that stuff. So we've gotten a pretty good shipping track record of getting burners fairly quickly over from Germany, but we don't throw them on the shelves just because they're not repeat. But we do have a couple different product lines. One of them is the EcoMax LE. It's a recoup burner.

So you drop those emissions down, that's a big thing going on over in Europe right now is how do you get those emissions lower. And the EcoMax burner is just a great example of that, being able to drop those emissions by recuperating that hot air.

Eric Johnson (31:12)
Is that a mesh burner? Do you have a mesh burner? Okay, I didn't know if they used mesh burners at all. Probably too delicate for industrial. I don't think...

Chris Gordon (31:15)
We do not have a mesh burner.

Mm-mm.

Eric Johnson (31:28)
Yeah, I've never seen one. The most, I mean, every time, as you probably are well aware, every time I went into an industrial plant, it was like Eclipse, everything. Eclipse burners. I'm like, is there another burner manufacturer other than Eclipse? It seems like everything's Eclipse and 50 years old.

Chris Gordon (31:37)
Yeah, yeah, yep, that's right. Yeah, yeah.

Yep.

Eric Johnson (31:47)
And correct me if I'm wrong, did Eclipse go out of business or?

Chris Gordon (31:56)
Clips was acquired by Honeywell, so they're part of the Honeywell portfolio now.

Eric Johnson (32:01)
Okay, but they still make eclipse burners?

Chris Gordon (32:04)
I'm gonna get in trouble by the Honeywell guys listening to this. ⁓ Because I'm not sure of the solid answer on that. I'm not sure, not sure. That is my weakness in just being in this industry for five and a half, six years. I don't know all that side. But we regularly see and run into eclipse burners, absolutely.

Eric Johnson (32:19)
All right, that, cause I.

I believe

if I'm correct that eclipse butterfly gas valves were no longer made and you couldn't get them anymore. ⁓ correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Chris Gordon (32:37)
Thermjet. Thermjet's

⁓ eclipse burner, right? Thermjet's?

Eric Johnson (32:41)
I

don't know the names of them.

Chris Gordon (32:44)
Okay,

yeah. They still sell those and I'm pretty sure that's an Eclipse burner.

Eric Johnson (32:50)
So when you go out to these plants, being five years in the industry, which is very, very new in terms of industry, do you get a general understanding of what is happening? Or is like, what is your first reaction when you walk into these facilities? Is it just like, you're just shocked at the massive scale of operations and like, how does anybody make sense of this?

Chris Gordon (32:58)
Mm-hmm.

It is overwhelming when you walk into these places like my gosh like has this always been here have they always been doing this sort of thing yeah it is ⁓ it's a lot to take in ⁓ but luckily ⁓ I've had a great mentor and some great guys that at Honeywell that I've worked with that that walk me through it.

So I don't know that I can plead that I'm ignorant. Now I'm five years in, like if I don't know it by now, I need to get out of this thing. ⁓ So I can walk into a place and I can follow the gas train. I understand what it's doing, ⁓ how it's calling for gas, how it's calling for air, what a regulator is, how regulator works. So I get that. It's easy to get overwhelmed when you walk into one those places like a foundry, but if I can just see that part of it, I can kind of piece together. Okay, I understand.

how this works and why this works. But having great mentors walking alongside me, letting me ask stupid questions along the way has been huge to be able to pick up this knowledge and not necessarily talk about it in front of customers, but understand when they're explaining an issue or they're explaining the process, like, okay, I'm following, I get this now.

Eric Johnson (34:35)
Yeah, there's a big difference between having deep knowledge that you've lived it versus you understand the framework. And understanding the framework is really all you need to be at because you're not the one that's specing the gas trains, but you're the one just doing the business side. But you have to have some general understanding of what your business is actually doing. Otherwise you get the corporates in the high tower that just demand orders and have no idea what the back shipping

are doing and that never works out well.

Chris Gordon (35:05)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and I've always been the person, I want to know how it works. I want to know the different functions of our job. ⁓ Back in my software world, I pride myself that I knew this software platform, forwards and backwards. I was the guy that somebody in the office would go to and ask. So when I walk into this whole new world, it has been a challenge to have to step back and be like, I have no idea. ⁓

but it's driven me to learn as much as I can. Watch YouTube videos or get out in the field, read documentation, find those people that have been doing this for 30, 40 years. Like, pour your knowledge into me. I wanna learn this. I'm never gonna be an expert. Like you said, I'm never gonna be the one specing gas trains, but I wanna understand why we have to and understand where it's going, ⁓ how they're using it.

Because you're right, at end of the day, helps me be a better business manager, a better leader for the organization, and help direct based on trends or based on what we're seeing.

Eric Johnson (36:11)
If a customer or a

end user has KromSchroder components that they want replaced or they want somebody to look at. Does KromAmericas, can you recommend somebody to do, I believe it's called a gap analysis of like, this has been installed 30 years. What does this look like versus current codes and safety?

Is that something you guys can recommend? you do yourself?

Chris Gordon (36:46)
So that's not something we handle ourselves, but it is something where we would utilize that Honeywell Channel Partner Network, those lists of distributors. Say, hey, I've got a distributor right down the road from you or in your state. I'm gonna pass this lead over to them, let them work with you, and then they get the benefit of somebody in their backyard that can help them out.

be there on call if they need it, be able to run out and do service visits, maybe do calibrations, whatever it may be. But yeah, will we get to that point? I don't know. Just because we do have such a strong network of folks out there that I just love working with. And as long as we keep that channel partner network.

that's absolutely the best for our customers to be able to refer those types of questions back to them and let them run with that.

Eric Johnson (37:41)
But they can, if they don't know who to call, they can start with you.

Chris Gordon (37:45)
Yeah, call us. ⁓ If they purchased from us before they got an account, if not, we'll ask them a few different questions and then get them redirected back to their local distributor. Yep, absolutely.

Eric Johnson (37:57)
Yeah, that's knowing who to call and contact is a lot of the battle, especially when you get into these industrial places and you have to wipe off the components and you're like, what is this? Everything says brownish gray. And you're like, ⁓ like, look, there's yellow paint under all this stuff.

Chris Gordon (38:18)
Yeah, we get those pictures quite a bit into our support inboxes. Hey, this isn't working. I don't know what it is. Can you help me out? And it's ⁓ a fun puzzle to try to figure out.

Eric Johnson (38:27)
Can you talk about the actuators as far as if somebody has, I guess what are the actuators are and also you have a drop-in replacement I believe for the Honeywell Modutrol 4 motor as well as some.

Chris Gordon (38:45)
We do have a drop-in

replacement for the mod motor. I'll start there. So that is our IC50. So our IC50 actuator, we've actually got a video out on ⁓ YouTube about that of just a drop-in replacement with a 7616BR crank arm assembly. It's wall-mounted. ⁓

The great thing about our IC50 actuators is the shaft is square and round. So it's round and then they have a little square shaft on top so it can take a couple different attachments. But that's a great high torque actuator. It goes up to...

30 Newton meters and I can't think of what the conversion is to that one.

committed.

265 pounds inches. So ⁓ it's no Herculine actuator, but it is a pretty good workhouse that is a drop-in replacement. And then we've got two smaller actuators, an IC 40 and an IC 50, and those go two different routes. They both go up to about 26.

inches pound. The IC 20 is cam shafts, shafts and dip switches. So the maintenance guy can go out and make a couple changes and pop that actuator in. The IC 40 is more of the

OEM product or more the tech nerds because you can actually program it with a cable you connect the cable to it up to a little opto adapter it plugs into the front of it pull up the software configure the the curve How do you want it to function? all those intricacies And those have been those have been great the markets really

really liked those.

Eric Johnson (40:40)
and how are those actuators mounted? Does I assume KromAmericas makes butterfly valves as well? Or KromSchroder KromAmericas is the distributor. Yeah.

Chris Gordon (40:50)
Yeah, so we've got, can, yeah, right, right.

Yep. Yep.

Yeah. So we have butterfly valves. We also have what is called a VFC. It's a ⁓ linear control valve. So it has that same body style as is our safety shutoff valves. You can pop different flanges on it bolted on. But what makes it unique and better

than a butterfly valve, because what, after you open a butterfly valve up, what, like 20, 30 %? I mean, it's open, right?

You really can't control it. But the VFC has a cone inside of it that has a V cut so you can slowly open that up. If you need more turn down, you can actually take the cylinder and raise it up a little bit by a little Allen screw at the bottom. So you can really fine tune that high and low fire. It is much more responsive and controllable than any sort of butterfly valve out there.

and either of those bolt right onto our actuator with two screws.

Eric Johnson (41:57)
Everything is designed for simplicity. It sounds like, yeah, I'm looking at that. Also another thing I love and I don't know who did it. Maybe this was your direction, but all the, lot of old fashioned distributors and just, hey, this is, if you need us, call us, but you have all your parts online with pictures, specs, pricing, add to cart that I can look at.

Chris Gordon (42:01)
Absolutely, right, absolutely.

Eric Johnson (42:27)
And I think that's huge because a lot of people want to do things on their own instead of call this number to see if we have this.

Chris Gordon (42:41)
Yeah, that was one of our key initiatives when I started. ⁓

had my project management hat on, because I've really started treating this whole thing as different projects, right? And been able to utilize my past experiences. So during requirements gathering of what do we need to be successful? And we kept hearing over and over again, you need a website that's got pictures. When I order a valve, I want to know what's in the box. Do the screws come with it? If I order a pressure switch, does the cable grommet come with it? So I often joke that I have more pictures of safety shutoff valves than I have my kids.

of my kids on my phone. You my memories pop up on iPhone as like two years ago you took a picture of these five valves. ⁓ So yeah, having a website built out that has pictures, has technical information.

has product literature there. We are trying, like you said, trying to simplify. All that documentation is out there on other websites from Honeywell, but if you're looking at an actuator, I don't want you to have to go to five different websites to see the tech literature. I want it right here on our website. So that has been instrumental in being able to just get product awareness out.

Eric Johnson (43:53)
Yeah, that's having everything in one place and easy to find is way different than it's somewhere out there on the internet. Yes, it's somewhere out there on the internet, but Honeywell is a giant billions of dollars global company. And it's not always the easiest for an end user who is not an expert to say, all right.

where is the exact literature that I need to find for this product. And now that you have KromAmericas, know, easy, very easy to use website to find the product, search it, have all the information, have the pictures because nobody looks at products based on part numbers.

Chris Gordon (44:41)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (44:48)
And then they go, yeah, that looks like what I have. they can order from there. and you talked about the thousands of part numbers. is KromSchroder do they obsolete part numbers regularly? Is that, or is it a pretty consistent?

Like the pressure, if I were to order a pressure switch today, is it going to have the same part number as a pressure switch 10 years ago?

Chris Gordon (45:18)
Yes, it will. ⁓ Honeywell moves slow with everything, right? So they're never going to go in and for no reason change part numbers. So yeah, those part numbers that were existed on or existing on pressure switches or safety shutoff valves 10, 12 years ago, that customer can call up. And we have a tool. If for some reason they bought a configuration, we would be able to see, OK, this is now obsolete, but here's the replacement.

because technology changes, Things improve. But those eight-digit part numbers, those are there to stay. Yeah, those aren't all trained at all.

Eric Johnson (45:57)
Well, that's good for continuity because ⁓ most end users buy a product and then don't look at it for 10 years and then, ⁓ it's not working and then ⁓ being able to search the part number and have it the same is huge. Can you go into the flame safeguards? They're a little bit different looking, but...

Chris Gordon (46:00)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right.

Eric Johnson (46:26)
I guess how many, I'm looking at it now, how many different, how does somebody choose a flame safeguard for what they're, is it just based on how many, application, how many accessories they need?

Chris Gordon (46:40)
Yeah,

yeah a little bit. ⁓ So we've got really I'm trying to think three main product lines for flame safety. ⁓ We have the BCU3 series which comes in little box. It's self-contained. ⁓ Those are for areas where you don't need NEMA 4. You just want it in a plastic box. ⁓ Great application for single burners.

If you need a nice heavy case and you're going to mount this to the side of a burner, it's going to be high heat, but you need a NEMA 4 and you'll able to spray down. That's where we move into our BCU 4 series. And those have different control modules that you can pop into it. It's got replaceable ⁓ transformers as well. So if a transformer goes bad, you can just unscrew the transformer that's in there.

order a replacement online or call us up and order it and be able to pop that right back in. So those are heavy duty and we've got the BCU 460, 465 and 480. Again, that's based on the application. Do you need a dedicated pilot? Do you have multi burner? There's a few different questions we would ask to help identify which one of those would be the best fit. And then the last one is the BCU 5 series.

And that is about the size of a Honeywell Blue Box, the RM 7800, if you're familiar with those. It's actually, we're working on some campaigns, some marketing collateral. It's actually a little bit better than the 7800. You don't need different amplifier cards. It's all built in. It's very simplified and that's din rail mounted. So if that's going in a cabinet or you have an opportunity to put in a cabinet, you're going to go with the 5 Series all day. ⁓

And similar to the 4 Series, a few different variants. What type of application do you have? Do you need a dedicated pilot, multi-burner? All of our flame safety utilizes UV scanners or flame rod. It doesn't matter. The system is smart enough to realize what you wired up to as well. So that makes it a little unique where you don't need one of those amplifier cards like you do on a blue box.

Eric Johnson (49:00)
Yeah, talk about number of part numbers. The Honeywell Blue Boxes. When I was doing service, I would always have, because you have customers that think a blue box is a blue box. I'm like, well, I don't even know how many they make, but there's like 50 to 100 kinds of these plus.

Chris Gordon (49:20)
Yeah,

yeah.

Eric Johnson (49:21)
And just because they look the same doesn't mean they're the same. You got to flip them over on the back, read the part number, read the inputs and the outputs. yeah, ⁓ that's probably the most famous. If somebody knows the Flame safeguard, it's the Honeywell Blue Box.

Chris Gordon (49:36)
Mm hmm.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. In our flame safety, can get overwhelming too when you look at all the options. So I just pulled up a website that I could see all the part numbers for a BCU 465. There are 1522 part numbers.

And I can guarantee that 1520 of those are software configurations. So I have two BCU465s that I stock. If you need a different communication module, I got those sitting on the shelf. I'm going to pop that out, pop mine in. Need a different transformer. You want a 33 % cycle duty cycle. So at 100%, I got those transformers. I'm going to build it for you. And then all those software configurations, we'll program it for you.

you're probably going to have to cook up to it anyway so you can program it yourself or we'll do it for you. I got them on the shelf. I can configure it. Or Mr. Customer, can wait 12 weeks and I'll order your very custom, very special BCU from Germany. And that's usually an easy...

easy sell, people understand, okay, I'm going to take advantage of what you have on the stock or have on the shelf. Doesn't have to be that eight digit part number. It's just going to function the exact same way of the part that I'm replacing. that's going back to. ⁓

getting the market to understand what we're doing. That's been a lot of ⁓ talking points is you may not get the eight digit part number you're looking for, but I got the stuff on the shelf and I'm gonna make it.

and just taking advantage of that. yeah, BCUs, there's so many variants. Call us up if you got questions. We've got some questions we can walk you through to make sure that we're specing it out to the applications you're using.

Eric Johnson (51:23)
Not to keep hammering you on technical components, but I want to talk about gas filters. And you can just say if you don't know, but gas filters, can you talk about the difference between a gas filter and a Y strainer ⁓ in general and then why a gas filter may be better than like a general use Y strainer that a lot of people use?

Chris Gordon (51:43)
Yeah.

Y-Strainer is going to be great for catching your welding rod that's in the line or large chunks of stuff. And it's part of NFPA code as well. But our filters, that's more for the fine particulate that's in gas ⁓ or in air. Airlines are filthy dirty in these places and gas can be pretty dirty as well. So those filters are more of a mesh material that's going to catch that fine particulate. It's going to help.

lengthen the life of your gas valves. It's not going to throw dirt in. It's going to corrode those seats or just make your flame not burn great. So we've got a couple different gas filters. One sits on the side, looks like a cam am filter. You just unscrew a couple bolts, pop out the media, let the...

mount it sideways so that mercaptan oil can drain out if you get a lot of oil in your lines. ⁓ And then we have some back to the modularity of the gas valves that actually bolts right next to the gas valve. Those same two volts goes right after the flange and it's just an Allen screw at the bottom, drop the media out, replace it, pop it back in.

Eric Johnson (52:56)
why if somebody doesn't filter the gas or has some very dirty gas do you ⁓ do you have any specific like what what can happen to the gas valves or to the components of the gas drain if they have tons of dirt

Chris Gordon (53:13)
Yeah,

it could just wear out those valve seats, the rubber valve seats after a while depending on what's in it. I think that's just the, that's the main reason we recommend putting filters on those is get better life out of your components. Now, is it going to take five years or 10 years or six months off your valve? I'm not sure. I would have to do some research on that and it depends on your environment, but strainers.

filters are cheap. It's pretty good insurance to throw on that to protect your upstream train.

Eric Johnson (53:50)
As far as ⁓ business operations, what do you see the future looking like as far as growth? Just keep doing what you're doing or running some marketing? I guess everything is education and marketing these days as far as the product's pretty proven. Is that?

Chris Gordon (54:08)
Yeah.

Eric Johnson (54:18)
just refining the playbook right now or grown into other areas.

Chris Gordon (54:25)
Yeah, we've got some some new ideas that are in the works ⁓ that hopefully we'll be able to get some information out on the next month or two. Some new packages that were packaged ideas were coming up with that we're seeing that there is a demand for OEMs. But one of our initiatives is moving more into South America. So we do sell into Mexico, but.

Now we are authorized to sell into all of South America. So what does that look like? That is a ⁓ whole market that we don't fully know yet. We have a general idea because Honeywell has reps down there and we're working closely with those guys to identify what are the codes? What type of products are you? 120 volt, do you need gold contacts on your pressure switches? There's a whole realm of...

area that we just don't know. But we've got some really good guys on staff at Honeywell that we're utilizing. Again, I think I mentioned this earlier, we're not owned by Honeywell. We just resell the product, right? But we do utilize the Honeywell sales team. So moving into South America and just starting to build out that market is a product they want.

but they can't get it without the long lead time. hey, why don't we work with you and start selling to them directly? ⁓ then KromAmericas is in a unique situation where we try not to promote or market KromAmericas as an organization. All the stuff we're putting out there is training on the KromSchroder component.

advertising the KromSchoder component. Yeah, I do throw some post out on LinkedIn every once in about KromAmericas and what we're doing. But at end of the day, we want our channel partners to be successful. So if I'm promoting KromAmericas...

I'm not helping them be successful, but if I'm doing brand awareness, product awareness of the KromSchroder portfolio and advertising our website, this is how you get this product, reach out to your local distributor. That's how we can help them grow and ultimately help us grow as well. So continuing to figure out new ways to market the KromSchroder portfolio ⁓ this year and how to get that out there more, whether that's through trade shows. ⁓

marketing campaigns, Google Ads, you name it, all sorts of different areas out there that we can go after.

Eric Johnson (57:01)
If a end user or somebody in your distributor network has a customer that wants education, do you travel for on-site education as far as the KromSchroder brand and what you're offering and...

Chris Gordon (57:18)
Yeah, yeah, we do. We tried to do joint visits. So we will go in as a vendor with the distributor to

go visit that OEM or go visit that mom and pop shop that may be roasting coffee and has our valves on their coffee roaster. So we do try to do joint visits whenever we can. On the distributor side, on the Honeywell side, Honeywell has specific OEMs that they work with as well, larger OEMs, and we do joint calls as well. Whether that's just, hey, have you heard of Krom? Or you used to use Krom and you couldn't get the parts, so you moved away. Let's...

Let's reassure you that KromAmericas is bringing KromSchoder back. We're here. Test this out. Start using our products again. ⁓ And with the building we have here, you've been here. ⁓ Great facility here. We've got training areas. We've got a training center. So the idea is to start building that out as well. Start offering training on KromSchoder components.

you could spend a week going through our flame safety line. ⁓ So let's take a BCU460. Let's hook it up to a ⁓ test panel. Let's run different scenarios. Let's connect to it with our laptop and let's see the different configurations it can do. Because it's one thing to go out in the field, and we saw this early on, go out in the field, take our Pelican case of components and hold it up and be like, isn't this pretty? This is our BCU460. ⁓

but to have actually hands-on time starts to get people to think through applications and get them familiar with it. So when they walk into a customer that's down and it's an IC20, they'll be like, yeah, I've played around with this before. I know how to set the min and max. I'm comfortable with this. it's getting distributors comfortable on it. ⁓

Yeah, ideally, I would love to start hosting more classes here, whatever that looks like, whether it's flame safety or just combustion one-on-one, and we talk through the KromSchroder components. It's just back to that ⁓ brand awareness on the KromSchroder product line.

Eric Johnson (59:34)
That's what every company is trying to figure out is training and you're more training of brand awareness and getting other people. But a lot of companies are trying to figure out internally how do we hire people and then train them up across all of our different customers, products, which is, I think,

Chris Gordon (59:37)
Yep.

Eric Johnson (1:00:03)
I don't know, I got very many thoughts about it, but there's no easy way to do it. And there are some companies out there, training companies that say, hey, you can just sign up for this online system and it's full of PowerPoint slides and then you'll be trained. And I'm like, well, that's not really how it works. And as you said, seeing a product work is entirely different than holding one up and saying, hey, look, here's your product.

Chris Gordon (1:00:12)
Hmm.

Yep. Yep.

Eric Johnson (1:00:32)
and that kind of access or ability to ask questions in an environment that's not a production environment and hey, it needs to work now.

Chris Gordon (1:00:42)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep.

Eric Johnson (1:00:46)
gives somebody the ability to think about questions they have or experiences they've had prior and to think about the product and to learn about it in a very safe environment that is way different than an on-site training where it's... ⁓

Can be very forced in the way of hey, this is how everything works. Hope you learn it now go fix it

Chris Gordon (1:01:18)
Mm-hmm.

People don't learn sitting in classes and yeah, people want to do hands-on stuff, for sure.

Eric Johnson (1:01:25)
Yeah, hands on is huge. You do have a lot, as you said, tons of parts, but you also have ⁓ some demonstration units. And I believe that, ⁓ what is that? What is that skid? Do you guys still have that skid in your? ⁓

Chris Gordon (1:01:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yep

so we've got a burner hooked up to it, a gas train hooked up to gas and light that sucker off. Yeah so real flame you can go in and adjust the flow, ⁓ take an anameter measure it or manometer measure it. ⁓ We've got one set up right now that actually has an

air gas ratio valve ⁓ regulator, GIK, or we have a solenoid valve that's got an air gas ratio regulator built into it as well. And it's just a small little thing, ⁓ but you can...

You can play around with the both. can see that if you adjust the airflow with the butterfly valve or adjust the gas or make some changes, configuration changes within the flame safety, how that affects that. Everybody likes flame, right? So you pull that out and light it up, start getting an audience real fast.

Eric Johnson (1:02:49)
Absolutely, yeah, that's pyromaniacs. ⁓ Do you have any common mistakes, technical questions you guys get that you could educate the audience on as far as maybe something that they could ⁓ not make a mistake on or some lessons learned?

Chris Gordon (1:02:53)
That's right.

Hmm.

Man, not having combustion knowledge on that one.

Eric Johnson (1:03:22)
I didn't know if you continually like over the couple years, five years, like you stood this business up, you're like, yeah, we're gonna distribute products and then you are like, man, we're really getting this question a lot.

Chris Gordon (1:03:27)
Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

That's actually where a lot of our YouTube videos have come from is if we're starting to hear questions a lot or a customer's calling in, think Logan, create a video. Because if that person's got that question. So one of our earlier videos is you take two valves and you bolt them together back to that modularity. But you have to make sure you have a double O-ring in the middle.

Otherwise that thing's just gonna sit there and whistle right and leak. ⁓ So let's create a video because we had heard of a couple customers like, hey, my gas valve leaks. Okay, well, did you put the O-ring in the middle? I don't know. Well, that's on page five, section 4.2 of the technical literature. Didn't you read it, silly? So instead of defaulting to that, like, let's create a video. Let's get that out there of, you have two valves. You're gonna bolt them together. So now you have a double shutoff valve.

There's an O-ring in there. You need to make sure you set it properly. You're not pinching it when you bolt the valves together. So that's really where our YouTube channel came from is I guess back to what you said, you know, what types of questions it's look at our YouTube channel. Those are the types of questions we get and nothing more satisfying than getting a question two days later. We've already answered the question, but two days later we send the customer. Oh, by the way, we just created a video. Here you go. Watch it.

people love it. ⁓ And that's, I think, one of the benefits of being a smaller company is we're nimble. We can do those sorts of things. We can create a video. We can put a piece of documentation together for a customer. We've got the ability to do that.

Eric Johnson (1:05:16)
Yeah, that's documentation is one thing, but seeing it on a video is another, especially documentation and video, because now they can read it and then they can see somebody doing it. And a lot of times.

if you read documentation, not that you have a reading comprehension problem, but I've done this. I'm like, what are they saying? But then you look at a video that's two minutes long, you're like, ⁓ I get it. Okay. And then you can go on from there. So.

Chris Gordon (1:05:36)
Mm-hmm.

Right, Yep. Yep. Yeah, our

components, the factory in Germany did a great job documenting everything, but it can be overwhelming, right? So much documentation out there on a valve, 80, 100 page user manual or technical manual.

So you're right, being able to surface and pull out just little sections of it, like these are the main points. Let's throw a video together. It can make it click for sure.

Eric Johnson (1:06:10)
Yes, the German culture and engineering is very precise and can be overwhelming to the average user. Especially, I've looked at some, I looked at a manual of another German manufacturer. I'm like, what is going on here? ⁓

Chris Gordon (1:06:21)
Yes. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Eric Johnson (1:06:34)
And it took me

Chris Gordon (1:06:35)
Yep.

Eric Johnson (1:06:35)
a while to find the answer in the manual because I also find, don't know, ⁓ does KromSchroder publish different manuals for ⁓ each language or do they combine it all into one manual?

Chris Gordon (1:06:50)
So there are multiple languages, but all the languages you're going to find on our website are the English versions. Yeah, but they do have, they do publish their manuals in multiple languages. Yeah.

Eric Johnson (1:06:56)
Okay, okay, so.

Yeah, some

manufacturers put multiple languages in one manual and it makes it very long and very confusing. And yeah, that's.

Chris Gordon (1:07:11)
But you can guarantee

that that long German document, it's got the answer. Guarantee the answer's there. You just have to find it. And it's hard to do a control F, control find when you're looking at a paper manual to look for a phrase.

Eric Johnson (1:07:15)
yeah.

Absolutely. So somebody coming from the outside in, do you have any ideas, suggestions of companies out there that are like, hey, we're in combustion. We're struggling to find people to even sell. Like, you know, we hire a salesperson. They know nothing. Like, what is the process to get somebody in, attract them, and then try to educate them on

the combustion business to give them a framework in order to be able to sell and semi support a customer.

Chris Gordon (1:07:59)
Man, that is a big question, right? I feel like everybody's struggling with that. ⁓ Just visiting different customers. Everybody's like, hey, where can we find combustion people? Because we have an aging workforce that we need to bring somebody in and start dumping this knowledge onto them. ⁓ I don't know, Eric, you might. I don't know. If you can figure out how to answer that, you're onto something. ⁓

Because unless you're in this world, you don't know it exists back to, me like six years ago. I had no idea. I just take for granted this Coke can, right? It just it's pressed. It's made. I don't know how they make it, but it's there when I need it. I don't know. I don't know how you find that talent without just driving that excitement up it.

trade shows and some of these shows we go to, I think you're going out to AHR I saw, be out there in a couple weeks too, is I like seeing the younger generation of kids. The college kids, a lot of them are there, you know, because they have to check a box for their class if they went and talked to two vendors. But getting them excited about this combustion world, telling them, hey, there's a career path here for you. It is a huge field.

that you can get into. But it's going to take a little bit of work. You you're going to have to get, I'm different because I was brought in as a business leader, but if you want to get into the service, you're going get dirty, right? You're going to do calls on the weekends and on holidays. You're going to be walking on top of these thousand degree furnaces, right? And your shoes are going to melt if you don't walk fast enough. But it's cool. It's really cool out there.

But I don't know. I don't know how you get more people interested in this and start that recruiting process. is something I hear over and over again from customers is, we just, we can't get anybody in here to do this. I don't know. What are you seeing? What are you hearing? What are you picking up on?

Eric Johnson (1:10:06)
⁓

Well, like I said early on if your kids teammates on your sports team Don't know what you do. You're not advertising enough but So there there's a lot of talk around the trades and this is for Really anybody so you can have the combustion person with the actual tools But then you can have the engineers because there's mechanical engineers that go

through the four year degree, get a bachelor's in mechanical engineering. And if you're unfamiliar with mechanical engineering, that's basically like, hey, I can cook. okay, well what do you wanna cook out of the million types of foods? And it's like, well, you gotta find your specialty. So there are specialties out of mechanical engineering, but there's no, essentially you're just kinda falling to what you like and if somebody doesn't know that...

Chris Gordon (1:10:49)
Right, right.

Eric Johnson (1:11:02)
the combustion industry is a thing, then they're not gonna know to look into it. So for immediate workforce, I would say the engineering programs in colleges and probably not your local or your your state giant college, because you're probably competing against some.

very, very large companies. Although, you can say, hey, if you're a partner with Honeywell, that's a pretty big name. But if you go into some smaller colleges with a little bit smaller engineering programs, I think you could find some success there. And you build a relationship with the professor. And even ⁓ say, hey, do you have somebody that's looking for an internship?

Chris Gordon (1:11:33)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:12:00)
for three months and have them. Yes, you're, you're gonna probably invest in them and they may work out. may not, but

You can't, I think a lot of companies are just afraid to, they're so caught up in the day to day activities that they haven't made time to do that outreach. being creative and really to solve it longterm, you actually really have to target middle schoolers. But what does that look like? Hey, we're gonna get.

Chris Gordon (1:12:26)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:12:40)
put on a science fair for the middle schoolers at our local grade school. And we're gonna take them out of the parking lot and we're gonna light a fire from a burner or something. Like it can be something super simple like that and kids love it. Even just putting that on a video and hey, you we can't light a fire or whatever. Make a cool video.

Chris Gordon (1:12:52)
Yep. Yep.

Eric Johnson (1:13:08)
and then do a presentation in a classroom for, because STEM is a big thing and trying to get kids involved in the engineering and sciences and stuff. it's going to seem pretty pointless for a couple years and years. But it's something that every other industry is essentially doing. And kids go into

Chris Gordon (1:13:14)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:13:35)
It sounds weird, but kids go into what they know. And that's why a lot of...

people in the, especially in the boiler space ⁓ are, this is true with anything. Hey, my family or somebody in my family did this. So that's why I got into this. It's because they have familiarity with it and they've grown up around it. So what's the answer? There is no answer, but if you are, if you're looking to build skill and talent,

Chris Gordon (1:13:59)
Right.

Eric Johnson (1:14:10)
quickly, get in and develop a relationship with the engineering teachers at smaller colleges. And you can't say, give us your best person because there are 40 companies that say, give us your best person. But unless you have that street cred,

Chris Gordon (1:14:30)
That's right.

Eric Johnson (1:14:35)
as a company, but a lot of smaller companies are 50 less people and they don't have this Google presence of, hey, you know, we don't have to recruit people, just come to us. But, and then you gotta get creative with social media. I mean, you guys are making videos and you're active on social media and

Chris Gordon (1:14:45)
Absolutely, ⁓

Yep, that's right.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:15:06)
while you may not.

yet like a lot of people think that because I post something there's going to be a reaction well you need to post something every single day for five years and then you might start being able to do something and I just think a lot of companies say what's the point or they they want to farm it out and that's you can't farm out to a media company or an advertising company like if you had

Chris Gordon (1:15:20)
consistency.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:15:38)
If you were hiring somebody, hey, make technical videos for us. They would come in and, hey, we're gonna script this, teleprompters, lights, camera, and all this stuff, and all of a sudden, you're like $12,000 a video. But you can set up a cell phone, have a wireless mic, maybe have a...

Chris Gordon (1:15:47)
Yep. Yep.

Yep, that's right. You don't

even need a wireless mic, right? We didn't have wireless mics until you did a visit. You're like, come on, guys. Yeah.

Eric Johnson (1:16:04)
Yeah, yeah, so the number

one thing with videos is not actually video quality, it's audio quality.

Chris Gordon (1:16:10)
Yeah, yeah. Kudos

to you for improving our audio quality. Thank you.

Eric Johnson (1:16:13)
Absolutely. But,

and then like a cell phone video is good enough in, ⁓ as long as the video teaches or communicates effectively to the audience, that is an effective video. And you can go on YouTube and there are some videos with some very low production quality that have millions of views because they deliver.

Chris Gordon (1:16:32)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:16:43)
actual knowledge and value versus.

a perfectly lit and 4k video that is edited and perfectly and all this stuff like there's unless you want to spend a ton of money and time doing all that and have the audience for that it's not worth it but it's

Chris Gordon (1:17:03)
Yep, yep. I think

this industry doesn't want that either, right? They want genuine content. They want mistakes made, right? They want to see the true heart of the person or what they're trying to talk through. They don't want polished. ⁓

Eric Johnson (1:17:20)
The mistakes made and the people that actually work in the company on video. That's also another thing I've noticed, especially on LinkedIn for whatever reason. No profile picture, blank pictures, blank profiles. Then you go on their website, everything's blank. And it's like, ⁓ I'm a firm believer from what I'm seeing.

Chris Gordon (1:17:23)
That's right. Yep. Yep.

Yeah, right, right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, sterile.

Eric Johnson (1:17:47)
is a company needs to have a hero. And if somebody were to look online, they can identify that hero. And then a lot of people or lot of employers I've heard and talked to, they're afraid that their hero will quit or leave or they'll get hired and recruited because now they're visible online. it's like, is a...

Chris Gordon (1:17:58)
Yeah.

Yep, then the brand walks out the door, right?

Eric Johnson (1:18:17)
I guess something minor that could happen, but there you can put some constraints around that. And, but at the end of the day, yes, that happens all the time. Like think about professional sports teams. They advertise for their amazing pitcher. And then he walks out the door for $50 million more to another team. You gotta, you gotta go with somebody else, but you can't let the fear of losing hold you back.

Chris Gordon (1:18:23)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yep. Yep.

Eric Johnson (1:18:45)
for to put yourself out there.

Chris Gordon (1:18:47)
Yep. Yeah, I'd say this industry, and probably the same way with the boiler side, it's such a relationship driven industry. Relationships are important. Face to face, people want to see who you're talking to. They want to call up and talk to Kevin that created this video because they have a question on it and Kevin's available to talk. ⁓ And with our distributors and the Honeywell guys work with and OEMs, it is just...

I didn't realize how strong of relationship everything is around here and it's great to see. It's people working together. ⁓ It's pretty awesome.

Eric Johnson (1:19:29)
Well, that's something KromAmericas has done very well is the technical support. And since you are small and nimble having those people available because in this AI automate and make everything bland world, people, when they have a question and issue, don't want to talk to your ⁓ AI assistant and

Chris Gordon (1:19:47)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:19:57)
your generalized email inbox that never gets answered and your forums online that they want to build a relationship and build a connection and being able to talk to a live human being without waiting a week.

for a callback is huge. I think it's only gonna get worse and it's the companies that are gonna be able to provide that relationship and actually lean into the human connection are the ones that are gonna thrive versus the giant corporations that want to.

delete humans from the business aspect kind of things. And that's fine as long as you don't need customer support. But in the combustion industry, customer support and ⁓ product support is huge. So if you have those two things, you need to provide it and having a very easy accessible, you you're not calling some engineer in Germany for KromSchroder, it's...

Chris Gordon (1:21:03)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Eric Johnson (1:21:06)
right in America, they speak perfect English, they're not routing you through India and...

Chris Gordon (1:21:08)
That's right.

Well, we speak

Indiana English, I don't know if it's perfect. But you're right. And so you call us and then let us deal with calling the guys over in Germany and talking with them. I mean, that is what we're for. Let's not have you call them. ⁓ One thing I'm sure my team is tired of hearing me say is customer centric. Like everything we do.

Eric Johnson (1:21:17)
You can...

Chris Gordon (1:21:35)
The way we answer the phone, the way we respond to emails, like it is customer first. Those customers, and if we don't have customers, we don't have jobs, right? We don't have a business. So it's taking care of those customers, taking the extra time to anticipate what's their next question. Go ahead and answer it, because you probably know what it's going to be. ⁓

So if you call in or you email us in and a question, you're probably going to get a pretty lengthy response with screenshots from our documentation, highlighting this and this. It doesn't take a lot of effort, but so many customers or so many customer companies out there just they don't customers are an inconvenience for them. Right. And so being customer centric, just keeping that front in mind with everything you do. ⁓ And it just becomes it just becomes habit after a while.

But everyone's what you have to remind people of it.

Eric Johnson (1:22:29)
Yeah, you gotta ingrain that and talk about it. That's something internally that a lot of companies struggle with is they talk about something enough that they think that everybody knows it, so then they stop talking about it. And they're like, well, everybody should know that. And in order to build

Chris Gordon (1:22:32)
Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:22:51)
a culture of customer service, you have to constantly remind people the why behind what you're doing and constantly connect the team together in aspects beyond the, we just show up to work every day, clock in, clock out. And if you provide a greater reason for work,

Chris Gordon (1:22:55)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:23:14)
of, like there's actually an OEM out there and they make this parts and our gas trains on it. And this customer service call helped them do this would help them like, like we are this tiny invisible like link in this giant world and supply chain, but our link matters and we need to hold our link together.

Chris Gordon (1:23:21)
Yep.

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Eric Johnson (1:23:39)
And

that is a lost art in the general business world today, but in the combustion boiler space, ⁓ there's still a ton of companies doing it. it is lean into that, lean into human interaction, human visibility online and in person. And that's also the great part. can, ⁓ how does...

Chris Gordon (1:23:43)
Yep.

Eric Johnson (1:24:08)
If somebody wants to stop by, what is the process for stopping by and learning more about and just seeing the facility and.

Chris Gordon (1:24:19)
Yeah,

give me a 10 minute notice so can have a fresh pot of coffee going. I don't know how you distribute this, my contact information or my email address, cgordon at KromAmericas.com Give me a call, shoot me an email, we'd be glad to have you by. Love having visitors over, love getting the opportunity to show the pressure tests.

bench we have in the back, right, that you saw or the artwork that you talked about. Or if you go into our training room, it looks like a random building. Well, no, that was when Ken and I were over at the factory in Germany. We took a picture of the original Kromschoder factory and our artwork is stuff like that on poster board. ⁓ Love showing this place off. And again, when people walk out there,

It's one thing to say I've got stuff on the shelf, but to walk out to our warehouse and say, holy cow, this is a lot of product. ⁓ Yeah, we welcome visitors anytime. Always love to talk to people.

Eric Johnson (1:25:23)
Make sure you bring your 12 point buck pictures and compare them and let them know what's up.

Chris Gordon (1:25:28)
That's right.

That's right.

Eric Johnson (1:25:33)
How are the trees doing?

Chris Gordon (1:25:36)
Trees, ⁓ we didn't let them. So ⁓ yeah, we planted some apple trees in our building or next to our building. ⁓ It's probably a couple of years now. They still look like little sticks. Rumor is we're going to let them produce fruit this spring. ⁓ Early on, you always want to pick the flowers off so the energy goes into the root and strengthening the tree. But I think we're going to we may have two or three apples that all of us can share this coming fall.

So yeah, I think we'll let him go.

Eric Johnson (1:26:07)
You're the only ⁓ combustion related business I know that's going to try to grow apples.

Chris Gordon (1:26:12)
you

Yeah, yeah, best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, so, but it's better late than never. Yep.

Eric Johnson (1:26:22)
Hey,

you got to start and if you're listening to this, put that into online videos and product support and social media. It's better late than ever. And a lot of people think that YouTube and all those social medias are saturated. Think about in 10 years from now, you'll be like, man, I wish I would have started in 2026. And ⁓ in the combustion industry, I'll say this, basically nobody's even started as far as ⁓

Chris Gordon (1:26:30)
Yep.

Yep.

Eric Johnson (1:26:52)
online presence and visibility. It's a wasteland as far as combustion and boilers and heavy industry. And there is a market for it. There are companies that want to, or people that want to see it. And I think that's why Mike Rowe ⁓ got so famous because he showed industries that people have never heard of on Discovery Channel in a very interesting manner.

Chris Gordon (1:27:06)
Mm-hmm.

Right, yep.

Eric Johnson (1:27:21)
You don't

have to have the same production value, but if you show what you do, people will find interest, especially if they also do the same thing. So any, any last words? think, I think we've covered it all. just, I appreciate you coming on the podcast and appreciate KromAmericas for letting me tour it and

Chris Gordon (1:27:44)
Yeah, absolutely.

No, this has been good. It's always nerve-racking to talk about yourself or especially talk about combustion. When I don't know everything, right, I got a team that is able to answer a lot of those questions that I rely on. So thanks for not making it too challenging, asking me, know, BTUs of this or that or some of the stuff where I need a team to help me out with.

Eric Johnson (1:28:10)
Now that's why I build a good team. You focus on what you're good at and you ⁓ hire out everything else. And that's part of building the business is ⁓ one person can't do it all and you don't have to be an expert to do everything.

Chris Gordon (1:28:13)
That's right. That is right.

Yep, but you have to be smart enough to know what you can't do.

Eric Johnson (1:28:33)
Yeah, and humble and humble enough to admit what you don't know. Yeah, that's some wide-sage advice. So you'll be at AHR.

Chris Gordon (1:28:33)
hire somebody that can do it, right? That's right, that is true, that is true.

Yeah, so we usually present every year. We get a little sub booth, we tack on to the Honeywell, but we're going to go walk it this year. You know how, I mean, you've been to that show. If you're in a booth, you're not leaving that booth, right? It is nonstop from nine to six or whatever the hours are. So we're actually going to fly out there and walk it, go out and visit some of our OEMs, see what's out there on the floor.

So really looking forward to that. That's just been a bit an opportunity we haven't been able to do in the past of getting out and seeing.

Eric Johnson (1:29:17)
Will the Honeywell

booth have a KromSchroder gas train

Chris Gordon (1:29:22)
I do not believe they will, no. So since we're not going to be there, I don't think they're going to have our products listed or sitting out. There will be some Honeywell Thermal Solutions guys out there and so the regular refrigeration.

side. Yeah, so if you want to see a KromSchroder gas train, you got to go to our website or stop by Indianapolis. We're on the east side of Indianapolis. So if you're ever in the area, stop by. We've got plenty of t-shirts to hand out.

Eric Johnson (1:29:50)
Go to the website.

Yeah, KromAmericas is K-R-O-M is Krom. Does that mean anything in German or is that just a common name from 1850? Krom.

Chris Gordon (1:30:04)
Yeah, so

KromSchroder is the family that started that business.

Eric Johnson (1:30:11)
Is Krom's shoulder a guy? Or is that... It's not two last names, it's...

Chris Gordon (1:30:13)
Think he was a guy, yeah, he was a guy. No,

it is the last name. KromSchroder's the whole last name. Yeah, when we were over, so we go over to Germany every year just to visit, keep that camaraderie going between the teams, talk about what's new, what are we seeing in the market.

Eric Johnson (1:30:20)
⁓ all right.

Chris Gordon (1:30:31)
⁓ So when we were over there this past October somebody actually had a book that had a photograph coffee of like the original KromSchroder family. So it was pretty cool, pretty cool. Yeah, so ⁓ that's the name. So we just took it. Okay, we want to represent the brand here, but we're in America. So let's just take Krom in America and piece together. And the domain was available. We meant to work.

Eric Johnson (1:31:00)
Hey, it works for me. I appreciate having you on and anybody listening, check out KromAmericas.com and also search for KromAmericas on YouTube.

Chris Gordon (1:31:02)
Yep.

56. Building KromAmericas with Chris Gordon

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