Contro Valve, Inc.

tough spots with older valve designs that aren’t supported anymore. We’re recognized as one of the bigger suppliers of valves. But there is definitely competition.” Salvo: “The competition for nuclear is very different than all our other industries like oil and gas, or petrochemical, or pharmaceutical, because to sell into the nuclear industry you need to have a qualification. There is only a limited number of companies with those qualifications that can sell, especially into the area that is pure nuclear. On the commercial side of the plant, or what they call balance of plant, it opens up to a number of competitors because the qualifications are reduced to a level where, in some cases, an ISO program is sufficient. But when you get into the nuclear side, the number of competitors is reduced significantly versus other industries that we deal with.” BVM: Is training does on a continuous basis? Salvo: “In this location in Burlington we have 35 employees. The commercial side, we handle just like our other daily business, but on the nuclear side, it’s really limited as to who can actually work on that product.” Tremblay: “Through our quality manual we have training requirements for employees. So, anyone who will be specifically involved with our nuclear business would have different training. As we implemented the latest quality revisions to bring through code products, Peter Hack, our Quality Manager, came to Burlington and did training of what the changes would be and how we’d be implementing them. He trained our shipper/ receiver in the process of receiving goods and how we store them. It’s all documented and signed off, and he keeps control of that.” Fournier: “We haven’t seen ISO change in quite a few years. ASME code hasn’t been changed in a long time, either. But there are big changes coming in the next couple of years, especially in Canadian nuclear. They’re updating the CSA ‘N’ standard that was N285 since, I think, the 1990s and that’s going to affect everyone. But usually, we go decades without changes.”