Hultec targets global reliability with brand alignment

SPRING, Texas—An industry leader in pipe sealing solutions is bringing four companies together under one global brand in the name of recognition and reliability.

Hultec Inc. will be the new name for S&B Technical Products, Maloney Technical Products, RieberLok, and Terramix. With a worldwide distribution footprint including the U.S., Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Australia and France, the seal and gasket company hopes to further expand into a growing machinery and manufacturing industry under its new branding.

"We consider ourselves a material science company from a rubber standpoint," Hultec CEO Tom Ross said. "We're experts and it's a very core competency of what we do. We compression mold, we injection mold, and we also extrude rubber in different forms for different applications."

The process started in 2023, according to Ross, complete with a headquarters move from Fort Worth, Texas, to a much newer facility in Spring, Texas, in June.

"It didn't really fit our brand of who we are, which is a world class market leader in the space," Ross said of the company's site. "The building was just underinvested in for years, so we thought it was time to move into a new location."

With the move came several new opportunities for growth, Ross said, including a full makeover of branding aesthetic that brought the company's mission statement to the forefront.

The four brands, now under one umbrella thanks to San Francisco-based private equity firm Industrial Growth Partners, were looking to create business synergy, Ross said. But through the creation of the Hultec brand, they may have stumbled onto something more tangible in defining what the company stands for.

"When we looked at the company, it (already) worked. This was not an unsuccessful company and things were going great, but it was fragmented," Chief Creative Officer Jeff Michalski said. "We started to think about our employees and our customers and our online presence.

"We came in and said, 'What are the common elements of all these different brands we have, and what is it that matters?' And the baseline was this reliability."

In creating the new brand, Ross, Michalski and other Hultec officials wanted to reflect that consistency and reliability. Rather than focusing on feature-rich products, like those that often command a customer's attention when purchasing a cell phone or a car, Hultec is more about selling "a good night's sleep" with their sealing solutions, Michalski said.

"I get very excited about the branding itself," Michalski said. "If you look at our shield, it has those elements in it. We have a guardian spirit to us. You can't build these pipe systems without the gasket and, ideally, we're happy to be overlooked. We're happy for people to take us for granted, as long as they're using us. They just know Hultec will be there. You can count on us."

Hultec's core value of reliability takes center stage throughout their product portfolio. The company manufactures more than just rubber seals and gaskets, also supplying rubber cores for MLB baseballs, according to Ross.

"It's probably one of the most tightly toleranced products that we have," Ross said of the baseball cores. "They guard that very tightly, and it's a very technical product. … It's really not the core of our brand and who we are, but it's definitely part of our legacy that we want to respect."

The four companies are stronger together, Ross said, and the new branding allows for further opportunities for growth.

"No matter the industry we serve, our core business strategy is to couple Hultec's industry leading customer service with innovative material science to design, and manufacture high quality gaskets and pipe sealing solutions," Ross said. "Because we are strongest as one, the unified Hultec global brand creates clarity in the marketplace and positions us to grow and take advantage of the many opportunities for tomorrow."

Hultec is taking a decidedly international direction with its new alignment. The brand already operates plants in Texas, Costa Rica and Vietnam, and is constantly expanding its distribution network. With the new alignment, Hultec hopes to bring its product footprint to a fully global scale, Ross said.

The company is working on a "new world-class manufacturing facility, warehouse and distribution center" in Houston, according to a company news release. The new building is scheduled to open Dec. 1, and be fully operational by April 2025, Ross said.

Hultec is deeply concerned with sustainability at each of its facilities across the globe, Ross said. He added that using seals to provide consistently clean water and air, although difficult to measure with a calculator or spreadsheet, is a "true and driving force" of the new brand.

"Customers around the world rely on our products to safely install critical infrastructure and protect the environment," he said. "Without our seals, communities would face more clean water loss, a higher threat of infection and wastewater contamination, and a greater risk for catastrophic events that affect the natural environment and significantly impact human lives."

Going into 2025 and beyond, Hultec is committed to conserving water, protecting land and sourcing only natural materials throughout its manufacturing process, he said. The company's facility in Costa Rica, a country quickly becoming a manufacturing hot spot, also runs on 100-percent clean energy in accordance with environmental protection laws in force in Central American country, Ross added.

"We're looking at new products that we can launch that allow for recyclability, that a lot of rubber products maybe don't," Michalski said. "Now, it has to work first and foremost, you have to have the seal functioning. But actually, we've got some really cool innovations that are in our development pipeline that do that as well."

For 2025 and beyond, Hultec is working on "making smart decisions and building on our strength to grow dramatically," Michalski added. With consistent opportunities to expand under the new brand,

"From my standpoint, (we want) worldwide brand recognition of a company that is responsible, sustainable and is helping bring clean water to the world," Ross said. "When people think about water, I want the first thing that they think about (to be) Hultec as that company that is helping the world be healthier, and the environment to be cleaner."