Blog Archives
McWane Ductile Utah are State Champs
We are pleased to announce that the McWane Ductile Utah bowling team of Richard Binks, Kelly Evans, Joe Carter, former employee Rudy Brailsford and David Vazquez were named the 2017-2018 city league champions. This team is great both on and off the job. Congratulations!
Utah Safety Council Recognizes McWane Ductile Utah
We are proud to announce that McWane Ductile Utah (MDU) received the 2017 Award of Merit presented by the Utah Safety Council. The Utah Safety Council is a chapter of the National Safety Council and serves Utah, Idaho and Nevada.
Pictured L-R: Utah Safety Council Representative, Ryan Grassley, Karen Tuckett, Angie Reece, and David Vazquez
McWane Team Attends American Foundry Society EHS Conference
The American Foundry Society (AFS) held its 27th annual Environmental, Health and Safety Conference on August 11–13, 2015 in Park City, Utah. The conference was heavily attended by both safety and environmental representatives from multiple McWane facilities as well other foundries from across the United States.
McWane played a big role in the conference by providing several speakers (Mike Parker, Ward Pate, and Jeet Radia) and the conference co-chair (Holly Guerrero) from among the McWane safety and environmental ranks. Also, as part of the conference, our nearby foundry, McWane Ductile–Utah, opened its doors to over forty attendees for a plant tour.
Meet McWane: Krystal Hansen, McWane Ductile-Utah
![Krystal Hansen [Scaled]](https://mcwaneinc.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/krystal-hansen-scaled.jpg)
We are pleased to announce that Krystal Hansen has joined the McWane Ductile-Utah team as the new HR Manager. Krystal has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Political Science from the University of Utah. She has extensive HR experience, most recently as a Human Resources Business Partner. Prior to that, she was the HR Manager for Unicity International.
Krystal owns two horses named Joe Joe & Annabelle and she enjoys riding, being outdoors and camping.
Please join us in welcoming Krystal to the team!
McWane Ductile Iron Pipe Companies Join Together to Form McWane Ductile
Today marks an exciting and historic change for the McWane ductile iron pipe companies. Effective immediately, McWane Cast Iron Pipe Company, Pacific States Cast Iron Pipe Company, Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe Company, and Clow Water Systems will operate unified under the new name McWane Ductile. This consolidation reflects a united company focused on providing excellent service and quality products to our customers, while making all of the divisions recognizable as part of the McWane family of companies.
In a letter to the team, McWane Ductile Sr. Vice President, Jeff Otterstedt said,
“We will make a public announcement later today; however, it’s important to us to first share it with our valued team members — the people who work so hard each and every day to make our company successful.”
This decision wasn’t made lightly. After lengthy consideration, it became clear that while we have many significant and rich traditions that are unique to each of our divisions, we become stronger collectively as one distinct brand. And, although our name has changed, our promise to our team members, customers, and partners remains the same as we build on our nearly 100-year history of creating iron-strong utilities.
There are many good reasons for this change. Not only does it provide our North American and international customers with a uniform business experience across our operations by standardizing purchase orders and acknowledgements, terms and conditions, invoicing, RMA procedures, quotations, submittals, and most other customer service processes, but it also aligns the best practices and cultures from all of our operations under one vision. We should note that Canada Pipe, also a member of the McWane ductile iron pipe companies, will retain its name, which best reflects its unique position as the leading ductile iron pipe provider in Canada.
With this unification, we are fully committed to maintaining and continually investing in our three plants, located in Phillipsburg, New Jersey; Coshocton, Ohio; and Provo, Utah. While we’re excited to forge ahead as McWane Ductile, we understand that it can be difficult to embrace change while saying goodbye to old traditions. We hope that you’ll consider this an opportunity to bring the very best parts of your current culture to this new brand that we can all be proud to call our own.
You’ll find more information on our new website at http://www.mcwaneductile.com.
Pacific States Team Walks in Honor of John Balian
The night of Friday, June 21, was a special night for 40 Pacific States team members who showed up to support their Relay for Life team and walk the track. They raised over $22,300 over several months prior to the event, and walked more than 141 miles that night!
Rick Garcia won the paid day off (after walking 20 miles that night)! Other top Pac States walkers included Vili Kolomalu (10 miles), Philip Robertshaw (10 miles), Jeff Tracy (8 miles), Victor Guereca (7 miles), and Josh Moffitt (7 miles).
The Pac States team was also mentioned in an article in the Daily Herald:
Pacific States Cast Iron Pipe, based in Provo, had a large team on hand and presented a large donation to the event’s organizers. Jessica Stones, a human resources manager for the company, said they got involved after their general manager John Balian passed away from cancer three years ago.
“We just wanted to do something to honor him and to help the cause,” Stones said. For the last three years the company has organized a charity golf tournament and donated that money to Relay for Life. This year they raised $17,000 from the tournament and threw in $5,000 of their own, plus a little bit more from other fundraising efforts. “Today we’re at 22 [thousand] and change. Hoping to raise a little more tonight,” Stones said. “We’re just happy to be here. It’s a great cause.”
Congratulations to all the Pac States team members that helped raise money for Relay for Life this year in honor of John Balian!
Meet McWane: John Jensen, Pacific States
John Jensen
Long after graduating college with a degree in mechanical engineering, John Jensen still retains the enthusiasm of youth. Sure, it helps that he has plenty of reminders close to home: six children of his own, with grandchildren just on the horizon. But more than that, John remains keenly interested in what makes things tick – and how to make sure they tick on time. He simply never lost his youthful appetite for doing, thinking and living – and all of it, with a smile.
Raised in Delaware, Jensen moved to Utah in 1983. While a techie at heart, Jensen is also an athlete. Calling sports one of his “true passions,” Jensen is as comfortable on the golf course, soccer pitch or volleyball court as he is anywhere else. Before joining Pac States in 2006, Jensen spent eight years running his own software consulting company.
“Now data is my passion. Finding ways to share data and provide the tools needed for success is very satisfying,” says John. “Doing things the right way is very important to me and discovering the best solutions while working with some of the great minds at McWane gives me a real sense of team achievement. I’m excited about the direction the company is headed, and look forward to becoming more involved in the emerging technologies we are pursuing.”
Jensen has already developed a first-class maintenance and production management software tool, spearheaded the customization of SalesLogix CRM for the pipe group, and interfaced with IS Networld to manage McWane’s vendor safety and insurance policies. What will he think of next?
John’s enthusiasm for what he does is contagious – and inspiring!
Announcing the Winners of the 2013 EHS Awards
The winners of the 2013 EHS awards were announced in February recognizing McWane facilities in five different environmental, health and safety performance categories. The winners were:
The Most Improved Recordable Injury Rate Award – The most improved total recordable injury rate (TRIR) is determined by calculating at year end the TRIR for each facility and comparing it to the prior year. The facility with the greatest percentage of improvement from the previous year is the winner. This year’s winners were:
AB&I, Oakland, California (Foundry)
Tyler Pipe Company, Marshfield, Missouri (Fabrication)
The Outstanding Health & Safety Performance Award is given to the facility that has the best overall health and safety performance in 11 different categories, including program compliance, incident rates, implementation of health & safety initiatives, and risk reduction efforts.
Manchester Tank & Equipment, Elkhart, Indiana
The Outstanding Environmental Performance Award is given to the facility that has the best overall environmental performance including management commitment, program implementation and compliance. The winners were:
Pacific States Cast Iron Pipe Company, Provo, Utah (Foundry)
Manchester Tank & Equipment, Bedford, Indiana (Fabrication)
The Outstanding Environmental Progress Award is given to the facility that showed the greatest overall improvement in environmental performance during the year. The winners were:
AB&I, Oakland, California and Tyler/Union, Anniston, Alabama (Foundry)
The Solberg Company, Green Bay, Wisconsin (Fabrication)
The EHS Excellence Award is given to the facility that has the best overall performance in both environmental and health and safety company-wide. There was no clear winner for this award in 2013.
Although the Screaming Eagle (pictured) was not awarded for 2013, we anticipate all facilities will continue with excellent health, safety and environmental programs during 2014 and strive to be this year’s winner.
Every team member plays a role in helping us become safer and more environmentally conscious and we must work together to continue to improve our EHS performance.
Congratulations to this year’s winners!
Pacific States Awarded EPA Grant
We are proud to announce that Pacific States was one of 6 recipients in Utah chosen by the EPA to receive funds under the Clean Diesel Grant. This Grant was established by the EPA to reduce diesel emissions from heavy-duty trucks in areas that have levels of fine particulate (PM2.5) that exceed the federal air quality standards.
In an EPA News Release, they stated that the goal of the Grant is to retrofit 19 long-haul trucks, based in Utah, with exhaust control devices that will reduce participate matter emissions up to 90% and idle-reduction technologies that will reduce engine idling time by more than 8,000 hours. The grant will also partially fund the replacement of two outdated vehicles, including a dump truck from Pacific States. More importantly, the grant will result in annual reductions of 48 tons of nitrogen oxides, 21 tons of participate matter, 15 tons of hydrocarbons, 83 tons of carbon monoxide and 1,364 tons of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. It will also save 83,462 gallons of fuel annually.
Pacific States will be replacing a 2000 model year dump truck with poor emissions for a 2011 model year or newer dump truck that meets the latest diesel engine high emission standards. The EPA’s Clean Diesel Grant will cover 25% of the cost of the new heavy-duty dump truck.
Pacific States team member Holly Guerrero learned about this Grant while looking for projects to enter in the 2013 McWane Pollution Challenge (P2C) and she organized and led the initiative in applying for this Grant. As you may recall, Pacific States came in first in last year’s P2C competition for another project in which they modified the weir on the T-Pot (Desulphurization Ladle) to optimize lime used for removing sulfur from the iron.
Congratulations to Pac States for receiving this Grant and in particular, Holly Guerrero, for all of her hard work on applying for this grant. Great job!
McWane, Inc. 