Ten Largest North American Commercial Heat Treaters. For the fifth year running we are publishing our list of the 10 largest North American commercial heat treaters in terms of estimated sales for 2007. There are several points we will bring up before we get into our list.

1) First, as most commercial heat treaters in North America are privately held, sales figures are not publically disclosed. What this means is we rely upon our relationships with the owners for their sales figures, along with knowledge of the number of plants each operates, number of employees and the heat treating processes they are involved in. In the vast bulk of cases owners are more than happy to share this information with us on the basis that we do not publish the actual numbers (the obvious exception to this is Bill Jones of Solar Atmospheres who is one of the most forthcoming individuals in the industry). Two companies on our list declined to share their figures with us which is entirely their prerogative.

2) The cut off point for our list is just under $30 million USD for 2007.

3) You will notice a number of changes in our list this year. This generally does not reflect a drastic change in sales figures rather the fact that we have a much more complete knowledge of the industry than when we started 5 years ago.

4) Referring back to our first point in a number of cases sales figures between each company are so close as to make an actual ranking almost impossible to determine. For this reason we feel that while each of these companies deserves to be on our list the actual ranking could be slightly off.

The List:

1) Bodycote International. Our rankings for first and second spot are absolutely clear cut with no room for debate. For the fifth year running, UK based Bodycote International is clearly the largest commercial heat treater in North America with plants in Mexico, Canada and the US. Estimated heat treating sales are in the area of $200 million USD. We will point out that we are not including their North American testing and "Hipping" operations (recently it was announced that Bodycote was looking for a buyer for their worldwide testing operations. Bodycote offers virtually every type of heat treating process available as well as running several captive heat treating operations. www.bodycote.com

2) Bluewater Thermal Services. As with Bodycote International, there is no doubt but that Bluewater (Buffalo, NY) is ranked correctly, number 2 in North America and the largest North American based commercial heat treater. With 15 locations in Canada and the USA, a few of their plants include Brazing Concepts, CCHT, B & W Heat Treat, Harbor Metal Treating, Hi Temp Inc., Pennsylvania Industrial Heat Treat, Rock River HT and SCM Metals. All of these shops were part of the heat treating division of Gibraltar Industries based in Buffalo, NY until the heat treating operations were bought by a private equity group in June of 2006 and the name changed to Bluewater Thermal and recently changed again to Bluewater Thermal Services. http://www.bluewaterthermal.com/

3) Paulo Products. While not as clear cut as our number one and number 2 rankings, we still feel reasonably comfortable in suggesting Paulo Products as the third largest commercial heat treater in North America. 5 locations in the US governing the gauntlet when it comes to heat treating, continuous, batch, Induction, Vacuum and brazing all come to mind. This is a privately owned company long owned and run by the Rassieur family. www.paulo.com

4) Woodworth Heat Treating. There are actually a number of different heat treating facilities under the Woodworth umbrella with 4 plants around the Detroit area and other facilities in Virginia. Like most of the Michigan based commercial heat treaters Woodworth specializes in large volume automotive work which can be a blessing or a curse depending upon the year. For Woodworth, automotive work has obviously been a blessing as they have grown substantially over the years. While they are largely automotive they also have very substantial vacuum and gas nitriding departments. www.woodworthheattreating.com/industry.htm

5) AL-Fe Heat Treating. Another privately owned and run commercial heat treater, Kurt Westman owner and president. With 7 locations in the US and a division that builds new aluminium heat treating furnaces Al-Fe is the largest commercial aluminium heat treater in North America. While it has been tough sledding for most heat treaters doing large volume automotive work, Al-Fe is a good well run company. The name by the way stands for Aluminum-Iron, Al-Fe. www.al-fe.com

6) Metal Improvement Company (Parent Company, Curtiss Wright). A perennial on our list, Metal Improvement has 9 heat treating locations around the US. It’s always difficult to know which position to put them in as such a large amount of their work is shot peening, however when all is said and done, they certainly are entitled to be included on this list. www.metalimprovement.com/index.php

7) Atmosphere Annealing. Atmosphere Annealing has gone through several different owners in the past few years, most recently they were bought by Gerdau MACSTEEL. AAI is a company that concentrates on heavy castings and forgings. http://www.quanex.com/About/location.htm

8) FPM. FPM has 3 locations in the US, Elk Grove, Il., Cherry Valley, IL., and Milwaukee, WI. At one time the one plant (we believe is was Cherry Valley) was on it’s own far and away the largest single commercial heat treater in North America. A specialist in fastener and large volume work, FPM is deservedly one of the ten largest in North America. www.fpmht.com

9) Solar Atmospheres. Solar is quite a success story. Located in Souderton, PA and Hermitage, PA Solar has become the largest commercial vacuum heat treater in North America and one that specializes in “high end” vacuum work. Started by Bill Jones, Bill remains as CEO with Roger Jones, his son as President. There is no guessing involved with this company as Bill very kindly provided us with his 2007 sales figure, a figure which represents a substantial increase over 2006- $30,463,288.00 www.solaratm.com

10) Advanced Heat Treat Corp. Advanced is the largest commercial heat treater on the continent when it comes to Ion (Plasma) Nitriding, although they do offer a number of other processes also. Another privately held company it has 4 locations in the US, 2 in Waterloo, Iowa, Monroe, Michigan and Cullman, AL. While Advanced has not appeared on our list before, based upon what we know of the company, we feel this company deserves a spot. http://www.ahtweb.com/