MADISON — ABZ Manufacturing, which has been in business since 1977 in Madison, has seen some big changes coming into the new year, but moving out of Madison isn’t one of them.
The biggest change in the company, said vice president Jason McClelland, was the buyout of the company by Global Flow Equipment Co., based in Stafford, Texas. McClelland said the buyout simply means the company is under a different umbrella. Employees and customers won’t see a change, McClelland said Thursday morning. McClelland and his father, Wayne McClelland, who serves as president and CEO of the company, will continue to make decisions regarding the operations and business.
That’s good news for Madison. ABZ is the community’s biggest taxpayer.
“We will not change anything as far as operations here,” McClelland said. “We will remain autonomous.”
ABZ was formed in 1977 and the name comes from the three original owners — Al Hamilton, Bill Sells and Raymond Zorn. The company was soon purchased by Wayne McClelland. Zorn remains at the company.
The original product line of ABZ included fabricated equipment for oil fields, including oil tanks and vessels. In 1986, when the oil industry hit bottom, ABZ Valves and Controls was created as a division, according to the company’s Web site. This division started making butterfly valves. The company has continued to grow from 5,000 square feet of building space in 1987 to more than 45,000 square feet and counting today.
ABZ now specializes in the manufacturing of valves for all kinds of equipment, Jason McClelland said. From food equipment to industrial applications, ABZ makes a valve for it. The valves are as large as 72 inches across.
“Virtually anything you can dream up, we have valves in,” he said.
McClelland said the company decided to sell to Global Flow Equipment to broaden its scope of business. Global Flow Equipment mainly caters to the oil and gas industry.
“None of the companies have a competitive product with us,” McClelland said. “It allowed us to broaden our spectrum of what we do.”
The acquisition also allows ABZ to go into the oil and gas industry at the refinery level.
“It allows us to take our products in heavy industries,” McClelland said.
The acquisition of ABZ was the largest that Global Flow Equipment has ever done, McClelland said. Now, the company represents roughly 20 percent of the entire Global Flow Equipment umbrella. Wayne and Jason McClelland each bought equal shares in Global Flow Equipment.
Jason McClelland said ABZ didn’t sell to Global Flow Equipment for financial reasons. The company has seen a 30 percent growth rate over the past six years. In the last two years, the company has seen more than 53 percent growth per year. The company has 42 employees in the Madison area and that number is continuing to grow.
“As long as we’re growing, we’ll continue to add employees,” McClelland said.
ABZ’s presence in the international market has soared in recent years. Twenty percent of ABZ’s sales come from overseas. In the past seven to eight years,the company has experienced 700 to 800 percent growth in overseas business — and that figure is continuing to rise at 100 percent per year in the past couple of years, McClelland said.
The company has sales offices in Lima, Peru, and is looking at opening offices in China and Korea.
Many of ABZ’s products are made in China and Korea and shipped to Madison. McClelland said the company started talks with China in 1999 to start manufacturing there. Today, 120 employees in China exclusively work on ABZ products and 50 employees in Korea manufacture ABZ products.
“If we hadn’t gone overseas, there’s no way we would be in business right now,” he said. “There’s no way we could have competed.”
Still, the company has a lot of presence in Madison. An entire block downtown is occupied by ABZ. The company also has two other locations in and around Madison. ABZ built a new building and personnel have been there for about a month.