Hello, and welcome to Flowcast. A podcast brought to you by Trillium Flow Technologies. I'm your host Michelle Dawn Mooney, and today we're talking about the Hiller Grand openings, some exciting things to get to, and I have some great guests to bring on for the topic at hand. Kevin McPherson is plant manager for US valves and Hiller, Trillium Flow Technologies, and Vince Elias is Global Sales Manager for Hiller a trillion Flow Technologies company. Thank you both for being with me today. Thank you. Thank you. Before we dive into the conversation, I wanted to see if you could give a brief bio for our audience. Kevin starting with you. Yes. Hi. Thank you, Kevin McPherson. I'm the plant manager for US valves and Hiller in trillion flow technologies. I've been with the business for eleven years. And in my current role, for a year next week, actually. Very excited to be here. Very excited to be part of the excitement that's building at the Hiller location. And Vince? Yes. My name is Vince Elias. I've been with the company going on four years now. My experience has been primarily in the nuclear power industry for twenty plus years in design and operation of of nuclear power plants. Wonderful. So we talked about at the top of the podcast, the topic of the day, Hiller's grand opening. So exciting things to talk about there with developments with a new facility and the new location. But before we kind of talk more about that, Vince, can you tell us who is Hiller? So, Hiller, back in the nineteen fifties, the company was created, primarily as a industrial supply company for small industrial parts. As the nuclear power, began in the nineteen sixties and in early seventies, Hiller started to manufacture large actuators for primarily mainstream and feedwater isolation valves. As the company grew, the market grew, and, to this day, we have several thousand actuators, in multiple countries supporting nuclear power, across the globe. So we've, we've, we've digressed from a small company that may you know, manufactured and supplied small industrial parts to, a, primarily a actuator manufacturer to support commercial nuclear power. And I understand that Hiller has a long history supporting the nuclear power industry, but I also understand Your new location has a long history as well. Can you tell us more about that? Yes. It does. So we are located at the the previously national, tube works here in McKisborg, Pennsylvania. It was a US steel company that at one point, this location had over ten thousand employees producing piping and tubing for, for really the the global demands. At one point, this was the largest pipe manufacturing company or pipe manufacturing site in the world. And producing over seventy percent of the piping and tubing just here in North America. Kevin, I wanna loop you in on the next question. What are the driving forces for Hiller to invest in the facility relocation? Yes. Thank you, Michelle. Volume. Hillers grown over the past few years pretty quickly. We see a growing demand in the nuclear market for actuation and within trillium. There's many opportunities in new markets, existing markets, and, being part of a business trillion flow technologies, that also supply other power industries with valves. All valves need actuators and you know, Hiller has its sights set on satisfying customers in existing and new markets. So it's really the growth that we've experienced and the growth that we have set for the business and having the facility and resources in order to satisfy customers. Yeah. And this really is a great problem to have to outgrow one facility and need to go to a larger one. So let me ask you this, Vince, how has Heller supported the most recent changes to the nuclear power market with the new move and new facility in mind? Sure. So the previously, nuclear power was large base load nuclear plants that were a thousand or more megawatts in power. The market the nuclear market now has shifted from these large, plants to a much smaller compact designed, and they're called small modular reactors. So we're in the past, they were over a thousand megawatts. These are, less than a hundred megawatts. And the hiller designs of previous have been large actuators that can, you know, provide a million pounds of force and close the valve in three to five seconds. And now we're we're in a market where it's very small actuators that, you know, can fit fit in the size of a space of a small refrigerator. So that took us to a a point where we had to take a proven design, and redesign it, make it much smaller and much lighter on for the small modular reactor market itself. And that's part of the the move here is to give us that that operating space to manufacture, the upcoming demand of the small modular reactor actuators, as well as the office space as we staff up to support this new market. Yeah. The actuators are reducing in size, but something that is increasing is your work base. Your team has grown. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yes. You know, the it's the the the old location building size, like you said, growth in a business is a great opportunity and challenge to have, in tandem with the relocation increasing the capacity of the of the work centers as well as the departments was necessary. So we've increased, you know, from around nineteen to thirty one people. We still have open positions that we're filling to be able to support this new business that we're experiencing now and we'll continue to experience in the years to come. And speaking of years to come, perfect segue here, what does the future hold? Obviously, a lot of excitement around this new grand opening, but How do you see this setting you up for future growth? So the the future growth is really in addressing, an aging nuclear fleet to support our current customers with, you know, rebuilded actuators, spare actuators as well as spare parts and then shifting over, to support, new customers with a small modular reactor design with much smaller compact designs. So the future is is bright and that that, you know, we're we're able to support our existing customer and customer base, as well as support the the future of nuclear power, all in this new facility. I wanna talk about the customers for a moment because I know customers are key for Trillium and all of the Trillium companies including Hiller. So tell me how this new facility will really help provide better services and products for your customer base. So with the move and the headcount increase, it's about being positioned to provide solutions. So where in the past the business may have fit into one business model of satisfying actuators in the nuclear market. Now we're able to support maybe outside of the box solutions to customers is there's real world challenges that are created at power plants And it's not always solved by being able to order an actuator that'll be delivered in forty weeks from now or twenty weeks from now. There are some solutions that are needed at power plants, that may be outside of the norm, for a lot of actuator at actuator manufacturing facilities, And with the size and the growth within the teams is we can start to provide solutions where in the past we may not have been able to. And if if I were to add to that, the, additional floor space in the production side as well as the increase in in headcount allows us to to quickly address, demands and needs of of current customers as well as future customers that that that really opens the door, to really provide quack quick really opens the door. Excuse me. It really opens the door for us to provide quick fast, responsive services to our customers. Any final thoughts as we're wrapping up here? Just that it's an exciting time for Hiller. It's an exciting time for drilling flow technologies. We're we're a business that I've I've seen go from just barely keeping up with the demands to really being prepared for growth and execution as our customer base grows. With a team full of of entrepreneurial thinking individuals who really are, customer obsessed. And I like I've love seeing the progression in the last year and excited about what the future brings. Kevin, I couldn't have said it any better. And we'll leave it at that. So if people are listening to this conversation, they're excited about what they hear. They would like to learn more about Hiller. Where can they go? The website is the best place to learn more about Hiller and its products. You can just search on trillium flow technologies dot com. The, and then look at the actuator section, and there you'll find almost a a virtual trade show of the products and services that we have to, to offer, as well as contact information. If you wanted to reach out to us by email, or by phone. Me personally, if you'd like to reach me, you can reach me through LinkedIn. Just search my name and, I'd be glad to answer questions that way as well. Wanna thank both of you for being here, Kevin McFearson plant manager for US valves and Hiller. Trillium flow technologies, and Vince Elias Global Sales Manager at Hiller, a Trillium flow technologies company. Appreciate you being here exciting things happening. And look forward to seeing what happens in the future. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you so much for your help. And I wanna thank all of you for tuning in and listening to flowcast, a podcast brought to you by Trillium Flow Technologies. Of course, you can visit trillium flow dot com for more information there. I'm your host Michelle Don Mooney. Thanks for joining us, and we hope to connect with you on another podcast soon.
