• Colors: Purple Color

On December 10, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the availability of a draft compliance guide that outlines which imported articles are covered by EPA’s July 2020 final significant new use rule (SNUR) that prohibits companies from manufacturing, importing, processing, or using certain long-chain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) without prior EPA review and approval.

For this 20 Questions segment, we went a little different and invited the owners of Bales Metal Surface Solutions — Sara and Stacey — to take part in this Q&A without seeing each other’s answers until they appear here.

It may be a reach to say that the DECC Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, saved rock and roll music, but stay with us on this one. Suffice to say, it was founder Evert Mellema’s ingenuity more than 56 years ago that kept many jukebox’s humming along, as well as dust and dirt free.

Like her grandfather who started General Magnaplate almost 70 years ago, Ashley Saunders Russo is a bit of an entrepreneur herself.

Adam Brumfield is the Director of Business and Product Development Roy Metal Finishing in Easley, South Carolina, one of the largest finishing operations in the U.S.

Zinc flake coating is a generic term for coatings and is used by several chemical providers globally. Zinc flake, by design, will lay and overlap on the products when coated. This allows for a blend of zinc flakes to formulate a uniform coating coverage. This specific coating is relatively thin (8-12 µm) and will produce a high level of corrosion protection for any part.

Meghan Bates is the Vice President at Luke Engineering in Wadsworth, Ohio, which specializes in anodizing and conversion coatings for the light metals of aluminum and magnesium.

A walk through the sprawling 175,000-square-foot campus that is Durable Industrial Finishing Co. (DIFCO) in Tucker, Georgia, will tell you all that you need to know about how automated the operations are at this 60-year-old finishing operation.

Milt Stevenson Jr. is Vice President and  Chief Environmental Officer at Anoplate in Syracuse, New York, which he runs along with his brother, Jim. It was founded by their father in 1960 and operates in a 104,000-square-foot facility. Milt is an active member of the finishing industry and its association, and in 2019 was named an NASF Fellow for his life-long work and dedication to the industry.

Duke Vo is Sales Manager at Temecula Quality Plating in Temecula, California, and previously served in the U.S. Army.

For metal castings and powder metal parts exposed to harsh, high-pressure, or vacuum environments, holes and fissures are unavoidable.

Staying engaged with its customers is important to Coventya USA, so during these pandemic times where travel is limited or restricted, the supplier to the finishing and coating industry has developed a program to improve the knowledge of its customers.

Jaime Maliszewski is president and CEO of Reliable Plating Works and general manager of Elite Finishing in Milwaukee, a family-owned company that has been around since 1929. Not only does he lead one of the top industrial chrome plating shops in the U.S., but Maliszewski and his employees are actively involved in a number of community organizations.