From JPCL January 2024
Founded in 1899, Sauereisen’s original products included concrete and ceramic formulations, before the company expanded into the corrosion industry. PhOTO: Courtesy of Sauereisen
This year, Pittsburgh-based protective coatings, linings and high temperature resistant materials manufacturing company Sauereisen will proudly celebrate its 125th anniversary of doing business. Founded as the Sauereisen Cement Company in 1899 by C. Fred Sauereisen, the company started with one singular product—Insa-Lute Adhesive Cement No. 1—which became the foundation of the company’s other product formulations.
From its original ceramics to corrosion-resistant coatings and linings, Sauereisen’s product lineup expanded as the company—and the Sauereisen family itself—grew over the decades. In 1966, the company moved from its original plant in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, to its current headquarters at RIDC park in suburban Pittsburgh. A series of acquisitions—Nukem in 1982, Coatings Composites in 1992 and Pocono Fabricators in 2008—helped necessitate an expansion at that facility in the early 2000s.
Today, Sauereisen manufactures corrosion-mitigating coatings and linings for the wastewater, oil and gas, food and beverage, power, mining and chemical processing industries, in addition to its long-standing ceramic compound applications.
Over the past 20 years, the company has received several awards, including a Congressional Award for Family Business of the Year in Western Pennsylvania in 2008, the Pittsburgh Business Times Ethics Award in 2012, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Family Business Award in 2013, the Pittsburgh Business Times Manufacturer of the Year in 2014, and three Presidential E-Star Awards for Export from the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1978, 2010 and 2019.
JPCL recently spoke with C. Fred’s grandson, Eric Sauereisen, who took over as president of the company in 2002, to discuss Sauereisen’s origins and its evolution as a family-owned company, as well as guiding principles and emerging market trends for the company.
Our grandfather had three sons that were eventually involved in the business—my father was the youngest of the three. However, our grandfather didn’t get married and start family until his mid-40s, so he was always accustomed to acknowledging and including non-family management and decision-makers. Our ability to withstand the test of time comes down to a lot of different factors, but that simple act of sharing decision-making has been crucial.
You can look at the chronology of leadership of the company, starting with my grandfather, followed a non-family member, then a family member, then a non-family member to now myself as a third-generation family member. Our founder didn’t always have the option or privilege of simply passing the business through family hands, and that paved the way for non-family members to grow with the company and have opportunities to lead. It’s been a terrific strength of ours.
Sauereisen has been blessed to have people stay with us for a long time. We had an early accountant who was with us for 44 years. We’ve had a few “lifers” through the years, and a lot of our upper management has been homegrown. Over time, we’ve truly gone from a family company to a company family.
My grandfather started the business with the classic American Dream. He had an eighth-grade education and got a job at a ceramics plant in East Liverpool, Ohio, where he developed an appreciation for the materials side of the business. He didn’t want to keep working in the plant, but he gained an understanding of the different properties of different products.
Our roots are in ceramics and high-temperature adhesives and products, and those are still a meaningful piece of business. In the 1930s, the company segued from those into the corrosion industry, being based in western Pennsylvania around the steel and coal and other chemically aggressive local industries. To take advantage of those opportunities, our founder adjusted the early formulations to be used as an acid-proof mortar and monolithic.
While we’ve grown through internal product development and different acquisitions, and our customer and market base has grown, we’ve also come to learn that there’s no single silver bullet for all corrosion applications. There are so many different variables, from the substrate, to the surface preparation, to the environmental conditions and everything else in between.
We make use of our company’s research group, which provides QC/QA, product development, technical support and other services. We also train applicators in field on how to properly use our products.
We’re often asked, where do you get the ideas for these new products? Some come from our customers who are looking for a solution, some is our own creativity, but our suppliers are also an important piece in developing newer, safer technologies.
Ultimately, today we’ve got a broad product line, and the diversification of our industries has meaningfully helped us, and will help us continue on this path.
Today, Sauereisen’s corrosion-resistant coatings and linings are applied in the wastewater, oil and gas, chemical, food and beverage and other industries. Photos: Courtesy of Sauereisen
Based on the sheer amount of customers we’ve served and continue to serve, over time we’ve gone from a strictly material business to more of an information business. People call us because we work with mortars and monolithics, coatings and linings, polymer concretes and repair materials. They now turn to us as an information resource.
We sell materials, but we also share our experiences, and we share our network of applicators and other industry contacts and resources. If we have a solution in our own quiver, great—but if not, we can steer them toward another product or solution.
We don’t want customers to call and say that a product isn’t working. From the onset, we make sure we understand all the parameters of the client’s challenges and deliver the best possible solution, and build a chain of dependability so that we can earn the client’s long-term trust and value.
Old-fashioned partnerships and relationships are vital. If you treat your team, your suppliers, customers and competitors with respect, and treat them fair, you’ll be around for a long time.
Things can become fairly insular in this corner of a very large industry that we’re in, but I believe that sharing best practices and mistakes is crucial. That even goes for our competitors—we have recommended their systems for different situations, and then some time down the line they might recommend ours. If you’re willing to help someone else, good karma comes back your way.
It’s important to always surround yourself with the best people you can find, from an attitude, experience and skills perspective. There’s a cliché that, “if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room,” and I think that holds true.
On a recent plant visit with one of the company’s California-based representatives, current Sauereisen President J. Eric Sauereisen (left) and 30-year veteran Material Specialist Jerry Waitkus (third from left) discussed products with Joe Keating (second from left) and Charlie Keating (far right) of J.A. Crawford. Photos: Courtesy of Sauereisen
Finding talent has always been challenging, but it’s getting easier and we will continue to add to our family here. We spend a considerable amount of time conducting training, both formal and informal.
As mentioned before, some growth is homegrown. A lot of good people and decision-makers came from the “farm team” or started in different areas of our company. We’ve been very fortunate from a longevity standpoint.
To fit within the culture is really important—and that extends to our customers as well as our own employees.
If you have a good team and you maintain a positive culture, you’ll find and attract
good customers.
In addition to skills, we look for people with humility and a sense of humor. Our company has a certain personality, and people might be really good candidates, but they have to fit with the culture. We want our employees to have fun with what they do and who they’re with. Ultimately, you work hard for people that you like.
For our company, we’ll aim to continue to push the envelope on product development and innovation. The most important market trends we see today are clean air and clean water, and being more mindful of safer and less harmful materials and applications.
The majority of Sauereisen’s work is rehabilitation—we go in and repair prior efforts. If stakeholders look closer at the inputs and total costs—not only materials, but also design, labor, logistics, equipment and energy – the value for a long-term solution rather than a “fix it” play becomes clear. If you address an asset the right way the first time, the carbon footprint is greatly minimized by not having to do it again.
Sustainability traditionally meant: How are we going to get our business three, or five, or ten years down the road? But by today’s definition, its more all-encompassing than that. If, for example, we think about carbon reduction from the onset, and take waste out of the chain, we can optimize our decisions given the present resources.
Our technologies restore—and most of all, protect. With an eye towards the environment, we’ll continue our initiatives to design solutions for long-term service life. Like our history, the goal for our clients and their installations is legacy.
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