Quick Hits for February (Sales)

Each week, I ask the sales team to provide an item or two that we can share with the entire APM team. Enjoy! Chip

Eric Hayston: While working on the repairs at St. Stephen’s Church, Hunter identified that the church had another air vent leaking at this site. Hunter’s note:

“As I researched the Danfoss 1 pipe system, I realized Evan’s survey indicated they were running at 5 PSI. They put a new boiler in recently. Unsure if this was before the survey or not, the pressure should not exceed 1.5 PSI on a 1 pipe system. We need them to lower the operating pressure immediately as this will cause the air vents not to operate correctly. Any questions, feel free to reach out to me.”

The customer dropped the boiler’s pressure to 2 PSI, which was earlier this week, so not enough time for an accurate appraisal. But so far, all issues seem to be resolved.

Sid Khanna: Jason Jimenez was working at Copper Medical and found the following issues:

“The facility is experiencing a large amount of steam pressure in their condensate return line. As I walk around, I find many traps valved off, bypass valves opened, pneumatic actuator valves with no compressed air available to them. It’s my feeling that their problems are entirely self-inflicted because of the culture that has festered within the maintenance department here.”

Even though they are an excellent APM customer, they still neglected the facility’s maintenance since we last performed repairs in the fall of 2019.  The other issue was when we surveyed in 2019; their maintenance staff did not walk us to large areas of the site with traps.  These traps were never tested.  This is one of the main reasons the survey has gone from 4 shifts to 6 shifts.  They appreciate our assistance, and we should be obtaining the repair work at this site once the quotes are completed.

Jim Krochune: FW Webb went around trying to steal APM’s business over the past year, and we’ve heard many folks complain about what they received and the time it took to receive their report. Straight from a customer (Collins Aerospace) that we lost to FW Webb:

From: East, Jeff Contractor <John.East@collins.com>
Sent: Friday, February 26, 2021 6:49 AM
To: Jim Krochune <jkrochune@apmsteam.com>
Subject: RE: 2021 Steam Trap Project

Hang in there with me, Jim. The internal Plumbing staff has decided that they want to do the install of these 39 traps. BUT,  I was talking with Engineering yesterday, and they are thinking about doing a PLANT WIDE Trap survey (  Like you did in 2013 ), and we are most likely going to want APM to do this.   Sort of a fresh new slate to build from. They do not like the FW Webb survey and LOVE yours. Stay tuned. Regards, Jeff East – Project Manager

Jim Krochune: John Slattery started surveying the Pratt & Whitney facility in CT. This facility poses several issues, including the facility’s size, access to areas, the ability to turn on steam to test, and a lack of support due to a reduction in staff on the customer’s side of the house. John pushed through these issues, and we were to secure assistance to test as many traps as possible. John is finding many steam traps that were not identified, tagged, or tested in previous surveys. The customer should be pleased to see our comprehensive survey results while valuing our ability to perform a survey with limited assistance.

Sean Keleher: The Liberty Utility special incentive program is going well. We have been building up several surveys under this program. Liberty is paying for 100% of the surveys and 100% of the repair costs, so we are working to pull in as many accounts as possible to take advantage of this special incentive. I am expecting to see these start coming in as projects in March.

I would like to note that I have been very impressed with John McManus. He is very diligent and detail-oriented, makes sure he is doing the right thing in every situation and is a straight shooter. For example, John noticed Met Pipe sent us a parts request for the Bestobell stuff on behalf of Tufts Medical Center, and he reported it to us before acting. That allowed me to rush the steam trap repair stuff, and we ended up getting the install. Obtaining the survey and install was a nice win for APM!

Brett/Mark (by Chip): Brett has been focused on Chicago for about 5-6 weeks and is beginning to uncover some excellent opportunities. Chicago offers APM a significant opportunity for growth, so APM brought on Mark Martella, who lives just west of the city (near O’Hare Airport). While Mark will reside locally in Chicago, Brett will develop new leads in Chicago to help build up the pipeline as quickly as possible. A huge thank you to Stephanie for her efforts recruiting for this new position, and a much appreciation to Courtney for having Mark set up and ready to go on day 1.

Brett opened an opportunity to provide survey and repair services for the City of Chicago in the last three weeks. Jason will be traveling to Chicago to meet with Mark Martella on 3/3. On 3/3, they will be walking the City Hall facility and perhaps other city-owned facilities. It sounds as if there’s an excellent opportunity to land several city-owned properties out of the gates. An exciting opportunity for APM!

On Thu, 3/4, Mark and Jason will be performing a walkthrough at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Chicago to confirm the trap count and ensure our survey will go smoothly. The customer is actively working on a PO for APM to perform this survey. Jason will be providing Mark with some hands-on training during these walkthroughs to help Mark better understand what we do and how we do it.