Pulva still grinding after almost 80 years
MIDDLESEX TWP — Other people may call their jobs a grind, but Catie Morley is a little more justified if she says that about her position at Pulva, 105 Industrial Drive West.
That's because Morley, along with her sister, Carolyn Hahn, are co-vice presidents of a company that has been making impact type grinding mills since the company was founded in 1938.
The company's Pulva-Sizer grinders come in five models and are used by Pulva's customers in the food, chemical, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.
“The housings are either cast steel or stainless steel,” said Morley, and are custom-made at an off-site foundry. “The components that make up the grinder — the screens, the lines, the wear plates — are made here.”
Morley said Pulva's grinder models range in size from the Pulva-Sizer A, a 2-foot-by-4-foot unit with either a 5 or a 7.5 horsepower motor and a 1¾” diameter feed screw, to the Pulva-Sizer F, a 5-foot-by-6-foot unit driven by a 125- to 300-horsepower engine and designed for high production of granular to medium grinding and milling.
For some reason there is no Pulva-Sizer E model, said Morley. “I don't know why we skipped E.”
According to Morley, the name Pulva-Sizer is no accident. Pulva's hammer mills are not pulverizers but size materials to specifications.
Grinders are built to order by Pulva's 45 employees.
“If we have all the pieces here, we can do it in a couple of weeks. They are build to order typically,” Morley said.
She added Pulva employs two sales people to find customers in countries as far away as China, where Pulva equipment is used in the production of carbon black, a material made from petroleum products and used as a filler in tires and in the production of plastics, paints, inks and pigments.
The grinders range in price from $15,000 to $50,000.
Morley credits Pulva's sales to having a wide range of clients so that a slowdown in any one industry rarely affects the entire customer base.“We have always been fortunate in having that diverse industry,” said Morley. “That has always been our strength and an asset for our business.”Pulva was started in 1938 by Fred and Mary Kolisek and Mary's brother, Ed Sigety, in Perth-Amboy, N.J. The two men designed the process and equipment to grind magnesium for the military in World War II.Present owner Ed Ferree, Morley's father, bought the business in 1988 as a matter of necessity, Morley said.He needed a large number of hammer mills, bought what was then High Speed Pulversizer and moved the plant to its present location 36 years ago.Morley said in the past five years, the plant has increased in size by 40 percent due to additions to the building.“We're improving the material but the design of the equipment is the same,” she said. “My dad would always say the industry has come out with new ways to grind, but our equipment can do it still in the most economical way.”To keep costs down for its customers, Pulva maintains a testing laboratory at the plant where employees run sample buckets of materials sent by customers through grinders to gauge the machines' effectiveness.Morley said sample materials can include spices, plastic pellets and shark cartilage — “The health food industry has had some strange requests” she said — and have been run though Pulva-Sizers in test batches.She added some material, such as rubber, can gum up the grinders at room temperature, so Pulva also has a specially constructed stainless steel heat exchanger to cool down materials by using liquid nitrogen as a refrigerant.
The heat exchanger is suitable for precooling a variety of materials, including plastic, rubber, food and drugs, to their embrittlement temperature for cryogenic grinding operations.When the material is then passed through one of the grinding machines, it is reduced to the required size.Pulva employees, some who have been with the company for 25 years, work a Monday-through-Thursday week with four 10-hour days. She said the plant is active from 3:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.Morley says the schedule came about because of the Great Recession of 2008.“A lot of our employees have to drive an hour to get here. In 2008, gas prices were high, and it was helpful for them to work four days a week,” said Morley.“We are very fortunate to have dedicated employees. We try to accommodate them when we can,” she said. “We would not be the business we are without our employees.”Maloney is predicting growth for Pulva in 2016.“We have a six-month cycle. We are able to see several months out from now, and 2016 looks like it will be a good year,” she said.
