Today we’d like to introduce you to Georgia Beyersdorfer, Director of Marketing / Sales.
Georgia, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
PEC started in 1973, formed by (3) engineers working for a local high voltage (HV) product manufacturer in Hyde Park, which relocated to Mississippi. The goal of the original founders was to rehire all the people who lost their jobs when the factory moved.
Eventually PEC became and continues to be a privately held company owned by the Clark Family of Canton, MA. Tom Clark, the first president and one of the original founders, cultivated many of the relationships to bring the company forward into the Power industry. PEC has maintained this focus through the years.
PEC’s home moved from Hyde Park to Canton, MA soon after creation and has stayed in Canton since. During the years PEC has moved a few times around Canton with each move providing us more manufacturing capabilities and office space.
We now are a company of 80 people with thousands of products installed in the US and around the world. PEC headquarters is still in Canton, MA and includes the offices and manufacturing of all of our product lines. We can truly say our products are made in America.
PEC’s focus is on the reliability of the power grid and we continue to improve upon our core designs to apply them to today’s world and the future. We are committed to excellence in our engineering, quality control, and client service to support the reliability the power grid needs to service its’ customers.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We have had many challenges in our short history ranging from the initial start-up and trying to survive, to how do we support a large in-flux of work, to continuing to engineer tailored solutions for the utilities.
One of the more recent struggles we had was factory floor space. A few years ago the amount of work we had did not fit into our factory footprint and we had to rent additional space in adjacent buildings to support the projects on our backlog. The challenges we faced during this time included: how to manage the workload and support the movement of material and product to and from the factory floor, how to manage the people in different locations, and how to adjust our manpower to support the amount of work we needed to meet customer demands. Of course one of the biggest items which we needed to consider was maintaining a steady cash flow!
It was a struggle for us balancing all of these issues, but we made it. We could see in our backlog the work was going to continue to grow. After touring several facilities around Canton we moved into our current location in Shawmut Industrial Park where we doubled our office and factory space.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Phoenix Electric Corporation (PEC) – what should we know?
PEC is an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) specializing in providing custom designed products to the Power / Energy sector. We thrive on the challenges of custom design and manufacturing. With experienced, highly knowledgeable engineers and technicians comprising more than half our employees, PEC specializes in developing custom products, systems, and solutions for the power transmission and distribution industry. All system design and manufacturing are performed in accordance with ANSI, IEEE, NEMA, and NEC Standards.
Part of our product portfolio consists of Medium Voltage (MV) and High Voltage (HV) equipment including:
– Air Core Reactors – protects MV and HV equipment in distribution and transmission systems susceptible to damaging power surges. We build reactors for 800 Volts up to 800,000 Volts.
– MV High Current Switchgear – protects power generation station equipment from dangerous short circuit conditions derived from the generation of power. The ratings of this product is for 15,000 Volt – 27,000 Volt systems. We have built up to 11,000 Amps continuous current and up to 130,000 Amps 2-second short circuit ratings.
– Oil Switches – used to isolate sections of the distribution system for maintenance / test purposes. This product is for distribution systems up to 4,000 Volts.
Our other main product line is building local control cabinets (LCC) for complex systems controlling generator circuit breakers (GCB), and high voltage gas insulated substation (GIS) equipment. The LCC is the brains and the GCB and the GIS are the brawn!
Beyond our normal product lines, we are currently involved with several product developments, including protecting the power grid from solar storms and, EMP (electromagnetic pulse) that can cause catastrophic failure to high voltage equipment.
All our products can be found in Power Plants, regardless of how the power is generated, i.e. Hydroelectric, Nuclear, Coal, Gas, etc. Our products can also be found in distribution or transmission substations. Substations are used to distribute power to various locations in a region, town, or neighborhood.
Due to the very technical nature of our products, a quarter of our staff is engineers with various backgrounds. This allows us to really push our products for a tailored solution to a specific customer need or solving a problem. PEC is very proud and is known for the high quality of our products and our engineering expertise. All of our products have a heavy duty design, meant to last decades in service. The Air Core Reactor product is an excellent example of our quality: we have a zero percent failure rate.
A key advantage to working with PEC, is that we have the ability to monitor the heartbeat of a project from concept, engineering, manufacturing and into the test phase. We are a close knit company where the communication is efficient, which greatly improves our reaction time to any change or modification which comes our way.
Where do you see your industry going over the next 5-10 years? Any big shifts, changes, trends, etc?
People watching the news, reading the newspaper or talking around the water cooler hear the terms renewable energy and “Smart Grid” solutions. These are two subjects which are dominating the discussions in our industry because they are changing the way we operate and see the power grid.
Renewable energies have (2) main applications: they can be introduced to the main power grid to provide energy during peak consumption times or they can create what’s called microgrids, which feed power to a local area, such as a neighborhood, industrial park, or town. Renewable energies which are linked to the main power grid create a challenge in the consistent availability of generated power. Also they are typically located in remote areas, which requires more infrastructure.
Smart Grid solutions support the implementation of renewable energies on the gird by monitoring and controlling the power flow through the network. An inherent benefit of Smart Grid is also minimizing black outs as it provides more information for the operators to plan and respond as opposed to react to an occurrence.
The trends to implement the above points include moving towards solid state solutions which will allow digital access to various power plants and substations for monitoring and controlling specific equipment to enhance reliability or power flow. This trend would optimize how we operate and monitor the grid, but as with any technology all aspects of it needs to be reviewed and analyzed to provide maximum benefit at minimal cost.
In the end, the points which will control any decisions for change will revolve around safety and security of the grid. We cannot have a reliable power grid without these two items being satisfied.
Contact Info:
- Address: PO Box 53
Boston, MA 02137
Factory:
40 Husdon Rd.
Canton, MA 02021 - Website: www.pec-usa.biz
- Phone: (781) 821-0200
- Email: info@pec-usa.biz
Getting in touch: BostonVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
