It’s a switch that’s been 30 years in the making. For both the company and its products.
To one way of thinking, Microtechnologies Inc. of Berlin began in a very different field than the industry it now specializes in, although in both cases, it involved making devices for industrial equipment.
Microtechnologies started out as a test equipment maker for numerous manufacturers who built things likes wall switches and helicopter pieces. It’s a story common to Central Connecticut, where aerospace manufacturing proves a fertile breeding ground for companies to begin, and later transition, to a new type of product.
Of course, in Microtechnologies’ case, that transition took roughly a quarter century.
Then, the company launched its Temperature Guard product, the device for which it’s best known, said company owner Frank Geissler, whose father, Frank, founded the company.
Temperature Guard, as its name suggests, is a range of products that monitor the temperature of a room or device like a refrigerator.
Since the company launched it six years ago, it’s morphed into 12 different types of products that can call or e-mail to alert someone that temperature in a given place has fallen too low, or gotten too high.
The simplest device is one used by those in a warm climate who have winter houses elsewhere, and want to ensure that the pipes don’t freeze back home.
“We can put these devices anywhere that temperature is critical,” Geissler said.
There are also devices used by computer rooms where temperatures too high can be disastrous. Refrigerators that are used by hospitals to store vaccines and antibiotics also need to be kept in a thin range of temperatures; Microtechnologies products alert people when they don’t
Microtechnologies has a well-known range of customers for each of those sorts of uses. The Golf Channel, for instance, just installed Microtechnologies-made devices to monitor the temperature of its computer room.
So did the White House pharmacy, which ensures that vaccines and medical supplies kept in the presidential residence are not exposed to heat or cold. The military is using a similar Microtechnologies-made device in Iraq to monitor medicines used for troops. So do the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health.
Microtechnologies is by no means a large company, of course. Its five employees work in a 4,000-square-foot factory space at 44 Washington St. in Berlin.
It’s supply chain, of course, extends beyond those doors. All the circuit boards for the equipment are actually built in Vernon by Tek Industries Inc., and then assembled in put together in Berlin. Temperature Guard products are sold mostly through distributors and installers.
“We’re very different company than when we started all those years ago, but that’s just the nature of the manufacturing business,” Geissler said.
Kenneth J. St. Onge is a contributing writer to the Hartford Business Journal.
