With a new CEO in place, Windsor manufacturer Stanadyne envisions a future where the world’s rising fuel economy standards will spill millions of dollars in orders through the 140-year-old company’s doors.
Stanadyne named David Galuska as its new CEO last week, ending a nine-month reign of Robert Isaman, who played a key role shifting the company’s strategic focus.
As part of a new, five-year plan, Stanadyne sold off its filtration division in April to pay off debt and focus full attention on its fuel injection systems business, where it sees much greater growth potential particularly as car manufacturers face pressures in the U.S. and abroad to make more fuel-efficient vehicles.
As part of that new focus, Galuska said, the company wants to be on the cutting edge of producing next generation fuel injection systems that cover all types of vehicles, including those powered by gasoline, diesel, and natural gas.
“We are just going to continue to see our five-year strategic plan through,” said Galuska. “It is not too hard for us to stay aligned with the market when we know the right things we need to be working on.”
Galuska joined Stanadyne in 2012 as its chief operating officer. He came out of retirement to work for the Windsor company after spending 33 years at Hartford conglomerate United Technologies, most recently as senior vice president for operations at Pratt & Whitney.
Stanadyne, which had $200 million in revenues last year, is owned by New York investment firm Kohlberg & Co. Its customers include major automakers like General Motors, who have increasing needs for better, more efficient fuel injection systems as vehicle economy standards rise, said John Pinson, who joined Stanadyne in 2009 and was named the company’s president last week.
The newest U.S. fuel economy standards require by 2025 that gasoline vehicles get at least 54.5 miles per gallon. Similar regulations are being approved throughout the world for all types of vehicles, from trucks to cars to diesel-powered trains.
As a result, car manufacturers are looking to make every part of their vehicles more efficient. For companies like Stanadyne, that means making parts lighter and function better using less energy.
“A key component of reaching those goals is the development of new technology,” said John Bozzella, president and CEO of the trade organization Association of Global Automakers. “It can’t just come from new developments in internal combustion engines or fuel injection systems or electric cars. It is going to take an all-of-the-above approach to reach that goal.”
To remain competitive, Stanadyne will need to invest in areas that allow it to remain on the cutting edge of technological advances, Pinson said. The company, for example, opened up a 60,000-square-foot, research and development laboratory three years ago in Windsor to increase its responsiveness to customer needs.
One of those new advancements was the development of a gasoline direct injection system, which offers up to 12 percent better fuel economy than single-point fuel injection systems by eliminating the length fuel must travel through the engine before reaching the combustion chamber. Gasoline direct injection systems were used in 3 percent of all U.S. gasoline vehicles in 2008, but that number grew to 30 percent by 2012, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Stanadyne developed a gasoline direct injection system for GM last year and is set to roll its 1 millionth unit sometime this summer. That system is produced at the company’s plant in Jacksonville, N.C.
Stanadyne’s new Windsor R&D facility is significant because it allows the company to take a product from concept to development much more quickly, in about six months, Pinson said.
“That is going to be a real competitive advantage for us,” Pinson said. “When a customer does business with Stanadyne, they give us a problem to solve … Solving a problem in six months is a rapid turnaround in this business.”
The R&D center also enables Stanadyne to develop the next generation of fuel injection systems in12-18 months, so it stays at the forefront of the industry’s needs for fuel economy, Isaman said.
“This is the building block for what we need for the future,” Isaman said.
While being at the forefront of gasoline engines and developing more products in diesel engines — particularly for trains — Stanadyne also sees opportunities building new fuel injection systems for natural-gas vehicles.
As a raw material, natural gas is cheaper than oil, and more vehicles like light and heavy duty trucks will be fueled by it in the future, especially since the gas comes from U.S. wells.
“The natural gas platform really addresses a lot of the energy needs of this country,” Galuska said.
Stanadyne has locations in China, India, and Italy, but all of its new research and development will be done in Windsor, Pinson said. That helps protect the company’s intellectual property and continues to anchor the firm in a place where it can access an educated workforce capable of developing technological advances.
“We will continue to invest here to move forward what is possible in fuel injection technology,” Pinson said.
As part of the $325 million sale of its filtration division to Tennessee-based Clarcor, Stanadyne lost 75 employees from its workforce, but they still work at the company’s Windsor headquarters as Clarcor employees.
The sale was necessary, Isaman said, so the company can focus its attention on its biggest growth segment and to pay down bonded debt.
Being debt-free, Isaman said, makes Stanadyne more appealing to suppliers and customers because they are a lower-cost, more stable company.
“The best thing for both pieces of our business was to sell the filtration side of the business,” Isaman said.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly put the location of the Stanadyne Jacksonville plant in Florida. It is in North Carolina.
