SSP expanding work force to chase growth

SCHAUMBURG, Ill.—Almost a year after being acquired by Heico Corp., Specialty Silicone Products Inc. is expanding its work force by at least seven positions.

The new hires are a part of a push for growth during the next 6-12 months, Dominic Testo, SSP business development manager, said in an interview at the Healthcare Elastomer Conference in Schaumburg.

The silicone manufacturer is bringing on positions in process engineering, human resources and professional procurement, and at least four in skilled labor positions.

"Most of our growth plans right now are people-based," Testo said. "Getting in more engineers to keep the factory running, bringing in a procurement person or HR person to take some of that from the other managers who need to concentrate on R&D or their teams."

The jobs come in across markets at SSP, which manufactures for applications including medical, industrial, aerospace and defense. As the growth efforts continue, SSP could look at increasing the total number of available titles, as more sales and customer service employees would be necessary. SSP, based in Ballston Spa, N.Y., has 74 employees at its 55,000-sq.-ft. location.

Post-acquisition, Testo said, SSP is focusing on developing its aerospace and defense niche markets, as well as specified certifications within those markets, where the company will be able to develop and test in-house.

"What we're learning with the defense contractor market is that the certifications, documentation and compliance are as important or more important than price," he said.

SSP's offerings for the defense market include critical applications in a niche part of aerodefense and telecom segments. The firm is focusing on investing an unspecified amount into its electromagnetic interference or radio-frequency interference shielding elastomers, the conductive silicones used for shielding gaskets.

In an effort to double capacity for extrusion parts for EMI RFI shielding, SSP purchased a new extruder to support the full-scale machine working on the product. The new extruder uses unique equipment to perform specialized work with conductive silicone, as opposed to non-conductive varieties. It also will open up some ability to do research and development work, while keeping customers' orders filled. The extruded products eventually will become bonded into O-rings and other seals, mostly with silver and nickel-filled materials.

"That market is growing rapidly because of the increased connectivity not just on the battlefield but in general," Testo said. "That would include 5G telcom applications where it's growing outside the military. Then within the military, electronic warfare is on the forefront, like missile defense and satellite. A lot of these applications call for good EMI RFI shielding."

Testo said SSP completed its ISO 9001:2015 certification, and its next step plans to reach its AS9100 certification. It also plans to qualify two products for MIL-DTL-83528, a U.S. military-level set of specifications.

Medical market growth

The firm also is further developing its medical-grade silicone offerings in the growth phase. Among those products is the SSP-2390 series, its one-part platinum cure HCR, which has a six-month shelf life. It also has the capability for custom pantones in low or medium volumes.

"We're continuing to grow and promote that market," Testo said. "If you said two years ago, you saw one or two inquiries or leads for it per month, we're now seeing about 10. It's huge."

Part of that growth comes from continued investment in content marketing such as technical blogs, promoting SSP as thought leaders in the industry, according to Testo. The development also is the result of a naturally growing segment of the consumer populations.

"I think what you're seeing is that the medical device market and the aging population just like we're talking about here continues to grow," Testo said. "And I think people in general on the design end of these things in medical device, blood filtration and drug filtration are getting smarter about what a peroxide catalyst is versus a platinum catalyst."

The market is coming to dictate platinum catalysts in medical applications more often, as a cleaner, non-byproduct material, he said.

The SSP-2390 series, Testo said, provides a one-part HCR six-month shelf life, compared to other products that are generally two parts to be mixed at the molder or extruder.

"In our situation, they can have no steps to mixing prior, and they don't have to worry about it going bad within a couple weeks or a month," he said. "We're proud of that one. We're continuing to promote and grow that for the medical device market."

While the company does have some long-term plans to add capacity within its current facility, there are no official expansions planned yet. Quick development has been partially possible because of investment from Heico, which itself focuses on aerospace and electronics markets.

"A lot of questions can be answered, there's a lot of ability to have some outside help where people have insights to the market on a much higher level," Testo said. "They've been extremely resourceful."

Heico also has supported SSP through equipment purchases, such as the new extruder for conductive silicone.

But Heico otherwise has been staying out of the way to allow the smaller team at SSP to continue to grow as it needs. About 46 percent of the team working at SSP have been at the company for five years or longer.

"They let us run pretty autonomously," Testo said. "Of course, we report to corporate offices, but they're basically letting the team that they acquired do what they do best and continue to grow. That's why they bought us, they saw the potential."