The sky’s the limit when it comes to creating innovative, proprietary solutions for customers – a tenet the Thompson Industrial sales team recently learned after a visit to HPC’s technology center earlier this month.

On July 11-12, a group of 12 Thompson sales employees traveled to Canal Fulton (northern), Ohio to view the 25,000 square foot facility, where HPC has its equipment on display for customers. The site, which first opened in 1989, also serves as a testing facility, allowing HPC to try out prototypes for the new, custom equipment it creates.

“We’re solutions oriented here,” said Senior Vice President of Industrial Services Frank Moll, who runs the tech center. “Our philosophy is to add more value to our customers through our technology. One of our biggest advantages is that we try to come up with solutions that don’t exist today and that our competitors don’t have so we can dominate the market.”

Thompson, which joined Clean Harbors in April, operates out of 21 facilities throughout the southeast. It works with customers across more than 500 locations in industries primarily new to Clean Harbors, like pulp and paper, metals and mining, food and tobacco, and power.

Although not an Industrial Services company like HPC, Thompson uses similar machinery to service its customers, which leaders on both teams feel can be optimized through the tech center.

“What we do is very similar,” said Vice President of Thompson Sales Larry Rocco. “We both do chemical cleaning and hydroblasting, just in different sectors. The team was very excited and we’re already brainstorming ways that we can use HPC’s technology to solve problems in a paper or steel mill, or a power plant.”

Additionally, while Thompson has its own specialized services unique to the company, like its eco-friendly cleaning solution that improves equipment performance and efficiency, FINFOAM, it can now look to HPC to create products that it otherwise would have to take to third-parties for manufacturing.

“Being able to understand a client’s problem, take that to our technical center for them to build or automate in house versus outsourcing brings a tremendous amount of proprietary value,” said Rocco. “We’re very excited about what we have to offer now that we’re part of HPC and Clean Harbors.”

The two teams will continue to meet over the coming weeks to begin developing and executing custom solutions for Thompson’s customers.

“We feel really strongly that we can adapt some of our technology to work for them,” Moll said. “Nobody leaves here without knowing they can do things differently in the future."